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UNIVERSITY  OF  N.C.  AT  CHAPEL  HILL 


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Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2012  with  funding  from 

University  of  North  Carolina  at  Chapel  Hill 


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THE    CHILDREN'S   HOUR 

IN   TEN   VOLUMES 
ILLUSTRATED 

VOLUME   X 


/  lots  A  /  may  never  hear  of  the  United  States  again  (page  454) 


Between  the  dark  and  the  daylight,  when  the  night  is  beginning  to  lower,, 
Comes  a  pause  in  the  day's  occupations,  that  is  known  as  the  Children's  Hour. 


COPYRIGHT    1907   BY   HOUGHTON,   MIFFLIN   AND   COMPANY 
ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 


NOTE 

ALL  rights  in  stories  in  this  volume  are  reserved  by  the 
holders  of  the  copyright.  The  publishers  and  others 
named  in  the  subjoined  list  are  the  proprietors,  either  in  their 
own  right  or  as  agents  for  the  authors,  of  the  stories  taken 
from  the  works  enumerated,  of  which  the  ownership  is  hereby 
acknowledged.  The  editor  takes  this  opportunity  to  thank 
both  authors  and  publishers  for  the  ready  generosity  with 
which  they  have  allowed  her  to  include  these  stories  in  "The 
Children's  Hour." 

"Recollections  of  Auton  House,"  by  Augustus  Hoppin; 
published  by  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Company. 

"Timothy's  Quest,"  by  Kate  Douglas  Wiggin;  published 
by  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Company. 

"Dream  Children,"  by  Horace  E.  Scudder;  published  by 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Company. 

"The  Story  of  a  Bad  Boy,"  by  Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich; 
published  by  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Company. 

"Under  the  Deodars,"  by  Rudyard  Kipling;  published  by 
Doubleday  Page  &  Company. 

"Twice -Told  Tales,"  by  Nathaniel  Hawthorne;  published 
by  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Company. 

"A  White  Heron  and  Other  Stories,"  by  Sarah  Orne  Jewett; 
published  by  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Company. 

"Little  Women,"  by  Louisa  M.  Alcott;  published  by 
Little,  Brown  &  Company. 


NOTE 

"The  Peterkin  Papers,"  by  Lucretia  P.  Hale;  published 
by  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Company. 

"In  Our  Convent  Days,"  by  Agnes  Repplier;  published  by 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Company. 

"The  Basket  Woman,"  by  Mary  Austin;  published  by 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Company. 

"The  Man  Without  a  Country,"  by  Edward  Everett  Hale; 
published  by  Little,  Brown  &  Company. 


CONTENTS 


TO  THE  CHILDREN ad 

MODERN  STORIES 

The  King  of  the  Golden  River     ....    John  Buskin  3 

At  Auton  House Augustus  Hoppin  36 

Two  Little  Runaways Kate  Douglas  Wiggin  44 

Hare  and  Hounds  at  Rugby Thomas  Hughes  57 

The  Prince's  Visit Horace  E.  Scudder  68 

The  Snow  Fort  on  Slatter's  Hill    Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich  75 

The  Cratchits'  Christmas  Dinner  .     .     .    Charles  Dickens  85 

Jackanapes Juliana  Horatia  Ewing  96 

A  Dog  of  Flanders  .     .     .   Louise  de  la  Bamee  ("  Ouida  ")  136 

Rd?  Van  Winkle Washington  Irving  186 

Alice  and  the  Two  Queens 

Charles  Lutwidge  Dodgson  {''Lewis  Carroll")  208 

The  Queen  of  the  Pirate  Isle  .     .     ...     .      Bret  Harte  217 

Wee  Willie  Wlnkie Budyard  Kipling  242 

The  Archery  Contest Sir  Walter  Scott  257 

A  Race  for  Life James  Fenimore  Cooper  265 

The  Great  Stone  Face Nathaniel  Hawthorne  271 

Farmer  Finch Sarah  Orne  Jewett  299 

A  Descent  into  the  Maelstrom     .     .     Edgar  Allan  Poe  335 

Jo's  First  Story Louisa  M.  Alcott  359 

The  Peterkins  are  obliged  to  Move      Lucretia  P.  Hale  373 

Miss  Beulah's  Bonnet Bose  Terry  Cooke  383 

The  Archbishop's  Visit Agnes  Bepplier  411 

Mahala  Joe Mary  Austin  419 

The  Besieged  Castle Sir  Walter  Scott  442 

The  Man  without  a  Country      .     .  Edward  Everett  Hale  450 

INDEX  OF  AUTHORS 489 

INDEX  OF  TITLES 503 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


I  WISH  I  MAY  NEVER  HEAR  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  AGAIN  (p.  454) 

F.  T.  Merrill    Colored  Frontispiece 

The  Knocker  seemed  to  be  in  a  Hurry     .    Richard  Doyle       6 

She  was  Safe  on  her  Beloved  Timothy's  Shoulder 

Oliver  Herford      48 

The  Rest  retired  confused  and  blinded  by  our  Well- 
directed  Fere A.  B.  Frost      80 

"  Is  THERE   A  PECULIAR  FLAVOR  IN  WHAT   YOU  SPRINKLE  FROM 

your  torch?" John  Leech      88 

"Leave  you?    To  save  my  skin?    No,  Tony,  not  to  save 

my  soul" Randolph  Caldecott    128 

Nello  and  Patrasche  did  the  Work  so  Well  and  so  Joy- 
fully 
By  permission  of  J.  B.  Lippincott  Company  .  E.  H.  Garrett    146 

Nello  drew  their  Lekeness 

By  permission  of  J.  B.  Lippincott  Company  .  E.  H.  Garrett    156 

He  assisted  at  thelr  Sports F.  O.  C.  Barley    188 

The  Twenty  Years  had  been  to  him  as  One  Night 

F.  O.  C.  Barley    206 
The  Great  Stone  Face From  a  photograph    272 

A  Choice  Supper  from  the  Lady  from  Philadelphia 

Augustus  Hoppin    382 

Drew  them  in  as  best  I  could  with  my  Pencil 

By  permission  of  Little,  Brown  $*  Co.    .    .    .    F.T.Merrill    482 


TO  THE  CHILDREN 

THERE  are  two  secrets  about  stories  that  not  every 
one  knows.  The  first  is  that  in  one  way  or  an- 
other every  book  worth  reading  is  true.  A  really  good 
"  made-up  story  "  is  just  as  true  as  an  arithmetic,  only  in 
another  fashion.  The  incidents  may  be  fiction,  but  the 
meaning  must  be  truth  itself.  "  The  Great  Stone  Face  " 
(page  271),  for  instance,  is  a  true  story.  Of  course  it  is 
not  at  all  probable  that  any  boy  ever  gazed  at  the  Old 
Man  of  the  Mountain  until  he  began  to  look  like  it; 
but  it  is  true  that  a  boy  is  almost  sure  to  become  like 
the  persons  whom  he  admires.  That  is  the  meaning, 
the  real  heart  of  the  story.  In  "A  Dog  of  Flanders" 
(page  136),  it  is  not  probable  that  precisely  the  events 
narrated  ever  took  place;  but  it  is  true  that  a  dog  is 
always  grateful  for  kindness  and  is  happy  if  he  can  re- 
turn it.  In  the  same  way,  Miss  Jewett's  "  Farmer  Finch  " 
(page  299)  is  true ;  for  a  brave  girl  like  Polly  would  not 
sit  idle  because  she  could  not  have  just  the  work  in  the 
world  that  she  had  expected,  but  would  "Do  ye  nexte 
thynge,"  as  the  old  motto  puts  it.  Again,  there  are  sto- 
ries whose  incidents  not  only  never  occurred  but  could 
not  possibly  occur,  such  as  Ruskin's  "King  of  the 
Golden  River"  (page  3)  and  Poe's  "Descent  into  the 
Maelstrom"  (page  335).  No  wicked  older  brothers 
ever  turned  into  black  stones,  and  no  fisherman  was 
ever  swept  down  into  a  whirlpool  which  never  existed. 

xi 


TO  THE  CHILDREN 

You  have  to  do  a  little  more  thinking  to  find  the  mean- 
ing of  these  stories,  but  the  meaning  is  there,  and  to 
discover  it  is  one  of  the  things  that  boys  and  girls  can 
do  as  well  as  grown  folk. 

The  second  secret  is  that  the  real  value  of  a  story  is 
the  way  it  makes  you  feel.  After  you  have  read  Dr. 
Hale's  "  A  Man  Without  a  Country  "  (page  450),  for  in- 
stance, you  are  almost  sure  to  feel  that  it  is  a  glorious 
thing  not  to  have  to  stand  alone  in  the  world,  but  to 
belong  to  your  own  country,  and  that  you  are  bound 
to  do  all  you  can  to  help  your  fatherland  in  peace  as 
well  as  in  war.  So  in  "  Jackanapes  "  (page  96),  although 
the  young  hero  is  not  made  at  once  commander-in-chief 
of  the  British  army  and  although  he  has  no  more  ad- 
ventures than  would  come  in  the  way  of  almost  any  sol- 
dier, yet  you  close  the  book  feeling  that  it  is  a  splendid 
thing  to  be  as  brave  and  generous  as  he  was.  In  "  The 
Peterkins  are  Obliged  to  Move  "  (page  373),  there  is  good 
clean  fun;  and  after  you  have  read  it,  imitation  fun, 
such  as  silly  practical  jokes  and  stories  that  are  just  a 
little  coarse,  seems  rather  stupid  and  vulgar.  You  know 
as  well  as  the  oldest  and  wisest  persons  on  earth  that  the 
feelings  which  come  from  reading  such  books  as  these 
are  good  to  have. 

This  preface  is  not  exactly  a  preface;  it  is,  rather,  the 
text  for  a  sermon.  The  sermon  you  can  think  out  for 
yourselves. 


MODERN  STORIES 


THE  KING  OF  THE  GOLDEN  RIVER 

By  John  Ruskin 

I 

IN  a  secluded  and  mountainous  part  of  Styria  there 
was,  in  old  time,  a  valley  of  the  most  surprising 
and  luxuriant  fertility.  It  was  surrounded  on  all  sides 
by  steep  and  rocky  mountains,  rising  into  peaks  which 
were  always  covered  with  snow,  and  from  which  a  num- 
ber of  torrents  descended  in  constant  cataracts.  One 
of  these  fell  westward,  over  the  face  of  a  crag  so  high 
that,  when  the  sun  had  set  to  everything  else,  and  all 
below  was  darkness,  his  beams  still  shone  full  upon  this 
waterfall,  so  that  it  looked  like  a  shower  of  gold.  It  was 
therefore  called  by  the  people  of  the  neighborhood  the 
Golden  River.  It  was  strange  that  none  of  these  streams 
fell  into  the  valley  itself.  They  all  descended  on  the 
other  side  of  the  mountains,  and  wound  away  through 
broad  plains  and  by  populous  cities.  But  the  clouds 
were  drawn  so  constantly  to  the  snowy  hills,  and  rested 
so  softly  in  the  circular  hollow,  that,  in  time  of  drought 
and  heat,  when  all  the  country  round  was  burnt  up, 
there  was  still  rain  in  the  little  valley ;  and  its  crops  were 
so  heavy,  and  its  hay  so  high,  and  its  apples  so  red,  and 
its  grapes  so  blue,  and  its  wine  so  rich,  and  its  honey  so 
sweet,  that  it  was  a  marvel  to  every  one  who  beheld  it, 
and  was  commonly  called  the  Treasure  Valley. 

3 


MODERN  STORIES 

The  whole  of  this  little  valley  belonged  to  three  bro- 
thers, called  Schwartz,  Hans,  and  Gluck.  Schwartz 
and  Hans,  the  two  elder  brothers,  were  very  ugly  men, 
with  overhanging  eyebrows  and  small,  dull  eyes,  which 
were  always  half  shut,  so  that  you  could  n't  see  into 
them,  and  always  fancied  they  saw  very  far  into  you. 
They  lived  by  farming  the  Treasure  Valley,  and  very 
good  farmers  they  were.  They  killed  everything  that 
did  not  pay  for  its  eating.  They  shot  the  blackbirds, 
because  they  pecked  the  fruit;  and  killed  the  hedge- 
hogs, lest  they  should  suck  the  cows;  they  poisoned  the 
crickets  for  eating  the  crumbs  in  the  kitchen;  and 
smothered  the  cicadas,  which  used  to  sing  all  summer 
in  the  lime-trees.  They  worked  their  servants  without 
any  wages,  till  they  would  not  work  any  more,  and  then 
quarreled  with  them,  and  turned  them  out  of  doors 
without  paying  them.  It  would  have  been  very  odd  if, 
with  such  a  farm,  and  such  a  system  of  farming,  they 
had  n't  got  very  rich;  and  very  rich  they  did  get.  They 
generally  contrived  to  keep  their  corn  by  them  till  it  was 
very  dear,  and  then  sell  it  for  twice  its  value;  they  had 
heaps  of  gold  lying  about  on  their  floors,  yet  it  was  never 
known  that  they  had  given  so  much  as  a  penny  or  a 
crust  in  charity;  they  never  went  to  mass;  grumbled 
perpetually  at  paying  tithes ;  and  were,  in  a  word,  of  so 
cruel  and  grinding  a  temper  as  to  receive  from  all  those 
with  whom  they  had  any  dealings,  the  nickname  of  the 
"Black  Brothers." 

The  youngest  brother,  Gluck,  was  as  completely  op- 
posed, in  both  appearance  and  character,  to  his  seniors 
as  could  possibly  be  imagined  or  desired.    He  was  not 

4 


THE  KING  OF  THE  GOLDEN  RIVER 

above  twelve  years  old,  fair,  blue-eyed,  and  kind  in  tem- 
per to  every  living  thing.  He  did  not,  of  course,  agree 
particularly  well  with  his  brothers,  or,  rather,  they  did 
not  agree  with  him.  He  was  usually  appointed  to  the 
honorable  office  of  turnspit,  when  there  was  anything 
to  roast,  which  was  not  often;  for,  to  do  the  brothers 
justice,  they  were  hardly  less  sparing  upon  themselves 
than  upon  other  people.  At  other  times  he  used  to  clean 
the  shoes,  the  floors,  and  sometimes  the  plates,  occa- 
sionally getting  what  was  left  on  them,  by  way  of  en- 
couragement, and  a  wholesome  quantity  of  dry  blows, 
by  way  of  education. 

Things  went  on  in  this  manner  for  a  long  time.  At 
last  came  a  very  wet  summer,  and  everything  went 
wrong  in  the  country  round.  The  hay  had  hardly  been 
got  in,  when  the  haystacks  were  floated  bodily  down  to 
the  sea  by  an  inundation;  the  vines  were  cut  to  pieces 
with  the  hail;  the  corn  was  all  killed  by  a  black  blight; 
only  in  the  Treasure  Valley,  as  usual,  all  was  safe.  As 
it  had  rain  when  there  was  rain  nowhere  else,  so  it  had 
sun  when  there  was  sun  nowhere  else.  Everybody  came 
to  buy  corn  at  the  farm,  and  went  away  pouring  male- 
dictions on  the  Black  Brothers.  They  asked  what  they 
liked,  and  got  it,  except  from  the  poor  people,  who  could 
only  beg,  and  several  of  whom  were  starved  at  their 
very  door,  without  the  slightest  regard  or  notice. 

It  was  drawing  toward  winter,  and  very  cold  weather, 
when  one  day  the  two  elder  brothers  had  gone  out,  with 
their  usual  warning  to  little  Gluck,  who  was  left  to  mind 
the  roast,  that  he  was  to  let  nobody  in,  and  give  nothing 
out.    Gluck  sat  down  quite  close  to  the  fire,  for  it  was 

5 


MODERN  STORIES 

raining  very  hard,  and  the  kitchen  walls  were  by  no 
means  dry  or  comfortable  looking.  He  turned  and 
turned,  and  the  roast  got  nice  and  brown.  "What  a 
pity,"  thought  Gluck,  "my  brothers  never  ask  anybody 
to  dinner !  I  'm  sure,  when  they  Ve  got  such  a  nice  piece 
of  mutton  as  this,  and  nobody  else  has  got  so  much  as 
a  piece  of  dry  bread,  it  would  do  their  hearts  good  to 
have  somebody  to  eat  it  with  them." 

Just  as  he  spoke  there  came  a  double  knock  at  the 
house-door,  yet  heavy  and  dull,  as  though  the  knocker 
had  been  tied  up,  —  more  like  a  puff  than  a   knock. 

"It  must  be  the  wind,"  said  Gluck;  "nobody  else 
would  venture  to  knock  double  knocks  at  our  door." 

No,  it  was  n't  the  wind ;  there  it  came  again  very  hard, 
and  —  what  was  particularly  astounding  —  the  knocker 
seemed  to  be  in  a  hurry,  and  not  in  the  least  afraid  of 
the  consequences.  Gluck  went  to  the  window,  opened 
it,  and  put  his  head  out  to  see  who  it  was. 

It  was  the  most  extraordinary  looking  little  gentle- 
man he  had  ever  seen  in  his  life.  He  had  a  very  large 
nose,  slightly  brass-colored ;  his  cheeks  were  very  round 
and  very  red,  and  might  have  warranted  a  supposition 
that  he  had  been  blowing  a  refractory  fire  for  the  last 
eight-and-forty  hours ;  his  eyes  twinkled  merrily  through 
long  silky  eyelashes,  his  mustaches  curled  twice  round 
like  a  corkscrew  on  each  side  of  his  mouth,  and  his  hair, 
of  a  curious  mixed  pepper-and-salt  color,  descended  far 
over  his  shoulders.  He  was  about  four  feet  six  in  height, 
and  wore  a  conical-pointed  cap  of  nearly  the  same  alti- 
tude, decorated  with  a  black  feather  some  three  feet 
long.  His  doublet  was  prolonged  behind  into  something 

6 


k& 


TO  BE  IN  A  HURRY  AND  NOT  TO  BE  AFRAID  OF  THE  CONSEQUENCES 


&&G&: 


4* 


^m 


THE  KING  OF  THE  GOLDEN  RIVER 

resembling  a  violent  exaggeration  of  what  is  now  termed 
a  "swallow-tail,"  but  was  much  obscured  by  the  swell- 
ing folds  of  an  enormous  black,  glossy  looking  cloak 
which  must  have  been  very  much  too  long  in  calm  wea- 
ther, as  the  wind,  whistling  round  the  old  house,  carried 
it  clear  out  from  the  wearer's  shoulders  to  about  four 
times  his  own  length. 

Gluck  was  so  perfectly  paralyzed  by  the  singular  ap- 
pearance of  his  visitor  that  he  remained  fixed  without 
uttering  a  word,  until  the  old  gentleman,  having  per- 
formed another  and  a  more  energetic  concerto  on  the 
knocker,  turned  round  to  look  after  his  fly-away  cloak. 
In  so  doing  he  caught  sight  of  Gluck's  little  yellow  head 
jammed  in  the  window,  with  its  mouth  and  eyes  very 
wide  open  indeed. 

"Hollo!"  said  the  little  gentleman,  "that's  not  the 
way  to  answer  the  door;  I'm  wet,  let  me  in." 

To  do  the  little  gentleman  justice,  he  was  wet.  His 
feather  hung  down  between  his  legs  like  a  beaten  pup- 
py's tail,  dripping  like  an  umbrella;  and  from  the  ends 
of  his  mustaches  the  water  was  running  into  his  waist- 
coat-pockets, and  out  again  like  a  mill-stream. 

"I  beg  pardon,  sir,"  said  Gluck;  "I'm  very  sorry, 
but  I  really  can't." 

"Can't  what?"  said  the  old  gentleman. 

"I  can't  let  you  in,  sir,  — I  can't  indeed;  my  bro- 
thers would  beat  me  to  death,  sir,  if  I  thought  of  such 
a  thing.    What  do  you  want,  sir?" 

"  Want  ? "  said  the  old  gentleman,  petulantly,  "  I  want 
fire  and  shelter;  and  there's  your  great  fire  there  blaz- 
ing, crackling,  and  dancing  on  the  walls,  with  nobody 

7 


MODERN  STORIES 

to  feel  it.  Let  me  in,  I  say;  I  only  want  to  warm  my- 
self." 

Gluck  had  had  his  head,  by  this  time,  so  long  out  of 
the  window  that  he  began  to  feel  it  was  really  unpleas- 
antly cold,  and  when  he  turned,  and  saw  the  beautiful 
fire  rustling  and  roaring,  and  throwing  long  bright 
tongues  up  the  chimney,  as  if  it  were  licking  its  chops 
at  the  savory  smell  of  the  leg  of  mutton,  his  heart  melted 
within  him  that  it  should  be  burning  away  for  nothing. 
"He  does  look  very  wet,"  said  little  Gluck;  "I'll  just 
let  him  in  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour."  Round  he  went  to 
the  door,  and  opened  it;  and  as  the  little  gentleman 
walked  in,  through  the  house  came  a  gust  of  wind  that 
made  the  old  chimneys  totter. 

"That's  a  good  boy,"  said  the  little  gentleman. 
"Never  mind  your  brothers.    I'll  talk  to  them." 

"Pray,  sir,  don't  do  any  such  thing,"  said  Gluck. 
"  I  can't  let  you  stay  till  they  come ;  they  'd  be  the  death 
of  me." 

"  Dear  me,"  said  the  old  gentleman,  "  I  'm  very  sorry 
to  hear  that.    How  long  may  I  stay  ? " 

"Only  till  the  mutton's  done,  sir,"  replied  Gluck, 
"and  it's  very  brown." 

Then  the  old  gentleman  walked  into  the  kitchen, 
and  sat  himself  down  on  the  hob,  with  the  top  of  his 
cap  accommodated  up  the  chimney,  for  it  was  a  great 
deal  too  high  for  the  roof. 

"You'll  soon  dry  there,  sir,"  said  Gluck,  and  sat 
down  again  to  turn  the  mutton.  But  the  old  gentleman 
did  not  dry  there,  but  went  on  drip,  drip,  dripping  among 
the  cinders,  and  the  fire  fizzed  and  sputtered,  and  be- 

8 


THE  KING  OF  THE  GOLDEN  RIVER 

gan  to  look  very  black  and  uncomfortable;  never  was 
such  a  cloak;  every  fold  in  it  ran  like  a  gutter. 

"  I  beg  pardon,  sir,"  said  Gluck  at  length,  after  watch- 
ing the  water  spreading  in  long  quicksilver-like  streams 
over  the  floor  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour;  "  may  n't  I  take 
your  cloak  ? " 

"No,  thank  you,"  said  the  old  gentleman. 

"  Your  cap,  sir  ?  " 

"I'm  all  right,  thank  you,"  said  the  old  gentleman, 
rather  gruffly. 

"But — sir — I'm  very  sorry,"  said  Gluck,  hesitat- 
ingly; "but — really,  sir — you're  putting  the  fire 
out" 

"It'll  take  longer  to  do  the  mutton,  then,"  replied 
his  visitor,  dryly. 

Gluck  was  very  puzzled  by  the  behavior  of  his  guest; 
it  was  such  a  strange  mixture  of  coolness  and  humility. 
He  turned  away  at  the  string  meditatively  for  another 
five  minutes. 

"That  mutton  looks  very  nice,"  said  the  old  gentle- 
man, at  length.    "  Can't  you  give  me  a  little  bit  ?  " 

"Impossible,  sir,"  said  Gluck. 

"I'm  very  hungry,"  continued  the  old  gentleman; 
"  I  've  had  nothing  to  eat  yesterday,  nor  to-day.  They 
surely  could  n't  miss  a  bit  from  the  knuckle ! " 

He  spoke  in  so  very  melancholy  a  tone  that  it  quite 
melted  Gluck's  heart.  "They  promised  me  one  slice 
to-day,  sir,"  said  he;  "I  can  give  you  that,  but  not  a 
bit  more." 

"That's  a  good  boy,"  said  the  old  gentleman  again. 

Then  Gluck  warmed  a  plate  and  sharpened  a  knife. 

9 


MODERN  STORIES 

"  I  don't  care  if  I  do  get  beaten  for  it,"  thought  he.  Just 
as  he  had  cut  a  large  slice  out  of  the  mutton,  there  came  a 
tremendous  rap  at  the  door.  The  old  gentleman  jumped 
off  the  hob,  as  if  it  had  suddenly  become  inconve- 
niently warm.  Gluck  fitted  the  slice  into  the  mutton 
again,  with  desperate  efforts  at  exactitude,  and  ran  to 
open  the  door. 

"What  did  you  keep  us  waiting  in  the  rain  for?" 
said  Schwartz,  as  he  walked  in,  throwing  his  umbrella 
in  Gluck 's  face. 

"Ay!  what  for,  indeed,  you  little  vagabond?"  said 
Hans,  administering  an  educational  box  on  the  ear, 
as  he  followed  his  brother  into  the  kitchen. 

"Bless  my  soul!"  said  Schwartz,  when  he  opened 
the  door. 

"Amen,"  said  the  little  gentleman,  who  had  taken 
his  cap  off,  and  was  standing  in  the  middle  of  the 
kitchen,  bowing,  with  the  utmost  possible  velocity. 

"  Who 's  that  ? "  said  Schwartz,  catching  up  a  rolling- 
pin,  and  turning  to  Gluck  with  a  fierce  frown. 

"I  don't  know,  indeed,  brother,"  said  Gluck,  in  great 
terror. 

"How  did  he  get  in?"  roared  Schwartz. 

"My  dear  brother,"  said  Gluck  deprecatingly,  "he 
was  so  very  wet!" 

The  rolling-pin  was  descending  on  Gluck's  head; 
but,  at  the  instant,  the  old  gentleman  interposed  his 
conical  cap,  on  which  it  crashed  with  a  shock  that  shook 
the  water  out  of  it  all  over  the  room.  What  was  very 
odd,  the  rolling-pin  no  sooner  touched  the  cap,  than  it 
flew  out  of  Schwartz's  hand,  spinning  like  a  straw  in  a 

10 


THE  KING  OF  THE  GOLDEN  RIVER 

high  wind,  and  fell  into  the  corner  at  the  further  end 
of  the  room. 

"Who  are  you,  sir?"  demanded  Schwartz,  turning 
upon  him. 

"  What 's  your  business  ?  "  snarled  Hans. 

"  I  'm  a  poor  old  man,  sir,"  the  little  gentleman  began 
very  modestly,  "and  I  saw  your  fire  through  the  win- 
dow, and  begged  shelter  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour." 

"Have  the  goodness  to  walk  out  again,  then,"  said 
Schwartz.  "  We  Ve  quite  enough  water  in  our  kitchen, 
without  making  it  a  drying-house." 

"It  is  a  cold  day  to  turn  an  old  man  out  in,  sir;  look 
at  my  gray  hairs."  They  hung  down  to  his  shoulders, 
as  I  told  you  before. 

"  Ay ! "  said  Hans,  "  there  are  enough  of  them  to  keep 
you  warm.    Walk!" 

"I'm  very,  very  hungry,  sir;  could  n't  you  spare  me 
a  bit  of  bread  before  I  go?" 

"Bread,  indeed!"  said  Schwartz;  "do  you  suppose 
we've  nothing  to  do  with  our  bread  but  to  give  it  to 
such  red-nosed  fellows  as  you  ? " 

"  Why  don't  you  sell  your  feather  ?  "  said  Hans,  sneer- 
ingly.    "Out  with  you." 

"A  little  bit,"  said  the  old  gentleman. 

"Be  off!"  said  Schwartz. 

"Pray,  gentlemen." 

"Off,  and  be  hanged!"  cried  Hans,  seizing  him  by 
the  collar.  But  he  had  no  sooner  touched  the  old 
gentleman's  collar,  than  away  he  went  after  the  rolling- 
pin,  spinning  round  and  round,  till  he  fell  into  the  cor- 
ner on  the  top  of  it.  Then  Schwartz  was  very  angry,  and 

11 


MODERN  STORIES 

ran  at  the  old  gentleman  to  turn  him  out;  but  he  also 
had  hardly  touched  him,  when  away  he  went  after  Hans 
and  the  rolling-pin,  and  hit  his  head  against  the  wall 
as  he  tumbled  into  the  corner.  And  so  there  they  lay 
all  three. 

Then  the  old  gentleman  spun  himself  round  with 
velocity  in  the  opposite  direction;  continued  to  spin 
until  his  long  cloak  was  all  wound  neatly  about  him; 
clapped  his  cap  on  his  head,  very  much  on  one  side  (for 
it  could  not  stand  upright  without  going  through  the 
ceiling),  gave  an  additional  twist  to  his  cockscrew  mus- 
taches, and  replied  with  perfect  coolness,  "  Gentlemen, 
I  wish  you  a  very  good  morning.  At  twelve  o'clock  to- 
night I'll  call  again;  after  such  a  refusal  of  hospitality 
as  I  have  just  experienced,  you  will  not  be  surprised  if 
that  visit  is  the  last  I  ever  pay  you." 

"If  ever  I  catch  you  here  again,"  muttered  Schwartz, 
coming,  half  frightened,  out  of  the  corner, — but  be- 
fore he  could  finish  his  sentence,  the  old  gentleman  had 
shut  the  house-door  behind  him  with  a  great  bang, 
and  past  the  window,  at  the  same  instant,  drove  a  wreath 
of  ragged  cloud,  that  whirled  and  rolled  away  down 
the  valley  in  all  manner  of  shapes ;  turning  over  and 
over  in  the  air;  and  melting  away  at  last  in  a  gush  of 
rain. 

"A  very  pretty  business,  indeed,  Mr.  Gluck!"  said 
Schwartz.  "Dish  the  mutton,  sir.  If  ever  I  catch  you 
at  such  a  trick  again  —  Bless  me,  why  the  mutton's 
been  cut!" 

"You  promised  me  one  slice,  brother,  you  know," 
said  Gluck. 

12 


THE  KING  OF  THE   GOLDEN  RIVER 

"Oh!  and  you  were  cutting  it  hot,  I  suppose,  and 
going  to  catch  all  the  gravy.  It  '11  be  long  before  I  pro- 
mise you  such  a  thing  again.  Leave  the  room,  sir;  and 
have  the  kindness  to  wait  in  the  coal-cellar  till  I  call 
you." 

Gluck  left  the  room  melancholy  enough.  The  bro- 
thers ate  as  much  mutton  as  they  could,  locked  the 
rest  in  the  cupboard,  and  proceeded  to  get  very  drunk 
after  dinner. 

Such  a  night  as  it  was!  Howling  wind  and  rushing 
rain  without  intermission.  The  brothers  had  just  sense 
enough  left  to  put  up  all  the  shutters,  and  double-bar 
the  door,  before  they  went  to  bed.  They  usually  slept 
in  the  same  room.  As  the  clock  struck  twelve,  they  were 
both  awakened  by  a  tremendous  crash.  Their  door 
burst  open  with  a  violence  that  shook  the  house  from 
top  to  bottom. 

"What's  that?"  cried  Schwartz,  starting  up  in  his 
bed. 

"Only  I,"  said  the  little  gentleman. 

The  two  brothers  sat  up  on  their  bolster,  and  stared 
into  the  darkness.  The  room  was  full  of  water,  and  by 
a  misty  moonbeam,  which  found  its  way  through  a  hole 
in  the  shutter,  they  could  see,  in  the  midst  of  it,  an 
enormous  foam  globe,  spinning  round,  and  bobbing 
up  and  down  like  a  cork,  on  which,  as  on  a  most  luxu- 
rious cushion,  reclined  the  little  old  gentleman,  cap  and 
all.  There  was  plenty  of  room  for  it  now,  for  the  roof 
was  off. 

"  Sorry  to  incommode  you,"  said  their  visitor,  iron- 
ically.    "I'm  afraid  your  beds  are  dampish;  perhaps 

13 


MODERN  STORIES 

you  had  better  go  to  your  brother's  room ;  I  've  left  the 
ceiling  on  there." 

They  required  ho  second  admonition,  but  rushed 
into  Gluck's  room,  wet  through,  and  in  an  agony  of 
terror. 

"You'll  find  my  card  on  the  kitchen  table,"  the  old 
gentleman  called  after  them.  "Remember,  the  last 
visit." 

"Pray  Heaven  it  may  be!"  said  Schwartz,  shudder- 
ing.   And  the  foam  globe  disappeared. 

Dawn  came  at  last,  and  the  two  brothers  looked  out 
of  Gluck's  little  window  in  the  morning.  The  Treasure 
Valley  was  one  mass  of  ruin  and  desolation.  The  inun- 
dation had  swept  away  trees,  crops,  and  cattle,  and 
left,  in  their  stead,  a  waste  of  red  sand  and  gray  mud. 
The  two  brothers  crept,  shivering  and  horror-struck, 
into  the  kitchen.  The  water  had  gutted  the  whole  first 
floor:  corn,  money,  almost  every  movable  thing  had  been 
swept  away,  and  there  was  left  only  a  small  white  card 
on  the  kitchen  table.  On  it,  in  large,  breezy,  long-legged 
letters,  were  engraved  the  words: 

Southwest  Wind,  Esquire. 

II 

Southwest  Wind,  Esquire,  was  as  good  as  his  word. 
After  the  momentous  visit  above  related,  he  entered 
the  Treasure  Valley  no  more;  and,  what  was  worse, 
he  had  so  much  influence  with  his  relations,  the  West 
Winds  in  general,  and  used  it  so  effectually,  that  they 
all  adopted  a  similar  line  of  conduct.    So  no  rain  fell 

14 


THE  KING  OF  THE   GOLDEN  RIVER 

in  the  valley  from  one  year's  end  to  another.  Though 
everything  remained  green  and  flourishing  in  the  plains 
below,  the  inheritance  of  the  Three  Brothers  was  a 
desert.  What  had  once  been  the  richest  soil  in  the  king- 
dom became  a  shifting  heap  of  red  sand;  and  the  bro- 
thers, unable  longer  to  contend  with  the  adverse  skies, 
abandoned  their  valueless  patrimony  in  despair,  to 
seek  some  means  of  gaining  a  livelihood  among  the 
cities  and  people,  of  the  plains.  All  their  money  was 
gone,  and  they  had  nothing  left  but  some  curious,  old- 
fashioned  pieces  of  gold  plate,  the  last  remnants  of  their 
ill-gotten  wealth. 

"Suppose  we  turn  goldsmiths,"  said  Schwartz  to 
Hans,  as  they  entered  the  large  city.  "It  is  a  good 
knave's  trade:  we  can  put  a  great  deal  of  copper  into 
the  gold,  without  any  one's  finding  it  out." 

The  thought  was  agreed  to  be  a  very  good  one;  they 
hired  a  furnace,  and  turned  goldsmiths.  But  two  slight 
circumstances  affected  their  trade :  the  first,  that  people 
did  not  approve  of  the  coppered  gold;  the  second,  that 
the  two  elder  brothers,  whenever  they  had  sold  any- 
thing, used  to  leave  little  Gluck  to  mind  the  furnace, 
and  go  and  drink  out  the  money  in  the  ale-house  next 
door.  So  they  melted  all  their  gold,  without  making 
money  enough  to  buy  more,  and  were  at  last  reduced 
to  one  large  drinking-mug,  which  an  uncle  of  his  had 
given  to  little  Gluck,  and  which  he  was  very  fond  of, 
and  would  not  have  parted  with  for  the  world;  though 
he  never  drank  anything  out  of  it  but  milk  and  water. 
The  mug  was  a  very  odd  mug  to  look  at.  The  handle 
was  formed  of  two  wreaths  of  flowing  golden  hair,  so 

15 


MODERN  STORIES 

finely  spun  that  it  looked  more  like  silk  than  like  metal, 
and  these  wreaths  descended  into,  and  mixed  with,  a 
beard  and  whiskers,  of  the  same  exquisite  workman- 
ship, which  surrounded  and  decorated  a  very  fierce  little 
face,  of  the  reddest  gold  imaginable,  right  in  the  front 
of  the  mug,  with  a  pair  of  eyes  in  it  which  seemed  to 
command  its  whole  circumference.  It  was  impossible 
to  drink  out  of  the  mug  without  being  subjected  to  an 
intense  gaze  out  of  the  side  of  these  eyes ;  and  Schwartz 
positively  averred  that  once,  after  emptying  it  full  of 
Rhenish  seventeen  times,  he  had  seen  them  wink !  When 
it  came  to  the  mug's  turn  to  be  made  into  spoons,  it  half 
broke  poor  little  Gluck's  heart;  but  the  brothers  only 
laughed  at  him,  tossed  the  mug  into  the  melting-pot, 
and  staggered  out  to  the  ale-house;  leaving  him,  as 
Usual,  to  pour  the  gold  into  bars,  when  it  was  all  ready. 
When  they  were  gone,  Gluck  took  a  farewell  look  at 
his  old  friend  in  the  melting-pot.  The  flowing  hair  was 
all  gone;  nothing  remained  but  the  red  nose,  and  the 
sparkling  eyes,  which  looked  more  malicious  than  ever. 
"And  no  wonder,"  thought  Gluck,  "after  being  treated 
in  that  way."  He  sauntered  disconsolately  to  the  win- 
dow, and  sat  himself  down  to  catch  the  fresh  evening 
air,  and  escape  the  hot  breath  of  the  furnace.  Now  this 
window  commanded  a  direct  view  of  the  range  of  moun- 
tains which,  as  I  told  you  before,  overhung  the  Treasure 
Valley,  and  more  especially  of  the  peak  from  which  fell 
the  Golden  River.  It  was  just  at  the  close  of  the  day, 
and,  when  Gluck  sat  down  at  the  window,  he  saw  the 
rocks  of  the  mountain-tops  all  crimson  and  purple  with 
the  sunset;  and  there  were  bright  tongues  of  fiery  cloud 

16 


THE  KING  OF  THE  GOLDEN  RIVER 

burning  and  quivering  about  them;  and  the  river, 
brighter  than  all,  fell,  in  a  waving  column  of  pure  gold, 
from  precipice  to  precipice,  with  the  double  arch  of  a 
broad  purple  rainbow  stretched  across  it,  flushing  and 
fading  alternately  in  the  wreaths  of  spray. 

"Ah!"  said  Gluck  aloud,  after  he  had  looked  at  it 
for  a  little  while,  "  if  that  river  were  really  all  gold,  what 
a  nice  thing  it  would  be!" 

"  No,  it  would  n't,  Gluck,"  said  a  clear,  metallic  voice, 
close  at  his  ear. 

"Bless  me,  what's  that?"  exclaimed  Gluck,  jump- 
ing up.  There  was  nobody  there.  He  looked  round  the 
room,  and  under  the  table,  and  a  great  many  times 
behind  him,  but  there  was  certainly  nobody  there,  and 
he  sat  down  again  at  the  window.  This  time  he  did  n't 
speak,  but  he  could  n't  help  thinking  again  that  it 
would  be  very  convenient  if  the  river  were  really  all 
gold. 

"Not  at  all,  my  boy,"  said  the  same  voice,  louder 
than  before. 

"Bless  me!"  said  Gluck  again,  "what  is  that?" 
He  looked  again  into  all  the  corners  and  cupboards, 
and  then  began  turning  round  and  round,  as  fast  as  he 
could,  in  the  middle  of  the  room,  thinking  there  was 
somebody  behind  him,  when  the  same  voice  struck 
again  on  his  ear.  It  was  singing  now  very  merrily, "  Lala- 
lira-la,"  —  no  words,  only  a  soft  running  effervescent 
melody,  something  like  that  of  a  kettle  on  the  boil. 
Gluck  looked  out  of  the  window.  No,  it  was  certainly 
in  the  house.  Upstairs,  and  downstairs.  No,  it  was  cer- 
tainly in  that  very  room,  coming  in  quicker  time  and 

17 


MODERN  STORIES 

clearer  notes  every  moment,  "  Lala-lira-la."  All  at  once 
it  struck  Gluck  that  it  sounded  louder  near  the  furnace. 
He  ran  to  the  opening  and  looked  in.  Yes,  he  saw  right; 
it  seemed  to  be  coming,  not  only  out  of  the  furnace,  but 
out  of  the  pot.  He  uncovered  it,  and  ran  back  in  a  great 
fright,  for  the  pot  was  certainly  singing!  He  stood  in 
the  farthest  corner  of  the  room,  with  his  hands  up,  and 
his  mouth  open,  for  a  minute  or  two,  when  the  singing 
stopped,  and  the  voice  became  clear  and  pronunciative. 

"Hollo!"  said  the  voice. 

Gluck  made  no  answer. 

"Hollo,  Gluck,  my  boy!"  said  the  pot  again. 

Gluck  summoned  all  his  energies,  walked  straight 
up  to  the  crucible,  drew  it  out  of  the  furnace,  and  looked 
in.  The  gold  was  all  melted,  and  its  surface  as  smooth 
and  polished  as  a  river;  but  instead  of  its  reflecting 
little  Gluck's  head,  as  he  looked  in,  he  saw  meeting 
his  glance,  from  beneath  the  gold,  the  red  nose  and 
the  sharp  eyes  of  his  old  friend  of  the  mug,  a  thousand 
times  redder  and  sharper  than  ever  he  had  seen  them 
in  his  life. 

"Come,  Gluck,  my  boy,"  said  the  voice  out  of  the 
pot  again,  "I'm  all  right;  pour  me  out." 

But  Gluck  was  too  much  astonished  to  do  anything 
of  the  kind. 

"Pour  me  out,  I  say,"  said  the  voice  rather  gruffly. 

Still  Gluck  could  n't  move. 

"Will  you  pour  me  out?"  said  the  voice  passion- 
ately.   "I'm  too  hot!" 

By  a  violent  effort,  Gluck  recovered  the  use  of  his 
limbs,  took  hold  of  the  crucible,  and  sloped  it  so  as  to 

18 


THE  KING  OF  THE  GOLDEN  RIVER 

pour  out  the  gold.  But  instead  of  a  liquid  stream,  there 
came  out,  first,  a  pair  of  pretty  little  yellow  legs,  then 
some  coat-tails,  then  a  pair  of  arms  stuck  akimbo, 
and,  finally,  the  well-known  head  of  his  friend  the  mug; 
all  which  articles,  uniting  as  they  rolled  out,  stood  up 
energetically  on  the  floor,  in  the  shape  of  a  little  golden 
dwarf,  about  a  foot  and  a  half  high. 

"That's  right!"  said  the  dwarf,  stretching  out  first 
his  legs,  and  then  his  arms,  and  then  shaking  his  head 
up  and  down,  and  as  far  round  as  it  would  go,  for  five 
minutes,  without  stopping,  —  apparently  with  the  view 
of  ascertaining  if  he  were  quite  correctly  put  together, 
while  Gluck  stood  contemplating  him  in  speechless 
amazement.  He  was  dressed  in  a  slashed  doublet  of 
spun  gold,  so  fine  in  its  texture  that  the  prismatic  colors 
gleamed  over  it,  as  if  on  a  surface  of  mother-of-pearl; 
and  over  this  brilliant  doublet  his  hair  and  beard  fell 
full  half-way  to  the  ground,  in  waving  curls,  so  ex- 
quisitely delicate  that  Gluck  could  hardly  tell  where 
they  ended;  they  seemed  to  melt  into  air.  The  fea- 
tures of  the  face,  however,  were  by  no  means  finished 
with  the  same  delicacy;  they  were  rather  coarse,  slightly 
inclining  to  coppery  in  complexion,  and  indicative,  in 
expression,  of  a  very  pertinacious  and  intractable  dis- 
position in  their  small  proprietor.  When  the  dwarf 
had  finished  his  self-examination,  he  turned  his  small, 
sharp  eyes  full  on  Gluck,  and  stared  at  him  deliberately 
for  a  minute  or  two.  "  No,  it  would  n't,  Gluck,  my 
boy,"  said  the  little  man. 

This  was  certainly  rather  an  abrupt  and  unconnected 
mode  of  commencing  conversation.     It  might  indeed 

19 


MODERN  STORIES 

be  supposed  to  refer  to  the  course  of  Gluck's  thoughts, 
which  had  first  produced  the  dwarf's  observations  out 
of  the  pot;  but  whatever  it  referred  to,  Gluck  had  no 
inclination  to  dispute  the  dictum. 

"  Would  n't  it,  sir  ? "  said  Gluck,  very  mildly  and 
submissively  indeed. 

"  No,"  said  the  dwarf  conclusively.  "  No,  it  would  n't." 
And  with  that,  the  dwarf  pulled  his  cap  hard  over  his 
brows,  and  took  two  turns  of  three  feet  long,  up  and 
down  the  room,  lifting  his  legs  very  high,  and  setting 
them  down  very  hard.  This  pause  gave  time  for  Gluck 
to  collect  his  thoughts  a  little,  and,  seeing  no  great  rea- 
son to  view  his  diminutive  visitor  with  dread,  and  feel- 
ing his  curiosity  overcome  his  amazement,  he  ventured 
on  a  question  of  peculiar  delicacy. 

"Pray,  sir,"  said  Gluck,  rather  hesitatingly,  "were 
you  my  mug?" 

On  which  the  little  man  turned  sharp  round,  walked 
straight  up  to  Gluck,  and  drew  himself  up  to  his  full 
height.  "I,"  said  the  little  man,  "am  the  King  of  the 
Golden  River."  Whereupon  he  turned  about  again, 
and  took  two  more  turns,  some,  six  feet  long,  in  order 
to  allow  time  for  the  consternation  which  this  announce- 
ment produced  in  his  auditor  to  evaporate.  After  which 
he  again  walked  up  to  Gluck  and  stood  still,  as  if  ex- 
pecting some  comment  on  his  communication. 

Gluck  determined  to  say  something,  at  all  events. 
"  I  hope  your  majesty  is  very  well,"  said  Gluck. 

"Listen!"  said  the  little  man,  deigning  no  reply  to 
this  polite  inquiry.  "  I  am  the  king  of  what  you  mortals 
call  the  Golden  River.    The  shape  you  saw  me  in  was 

20 


THE  KING  OF  THE  GOLDEN  RIVER 

owing  to  the  malice  of  a  stronger  king,  from  whose  en- 
chantments you  have  this  instant  freed  me.  What  I 
have  seen  of  you,  and  your  conduct  to  your  wicked 
brothers,  renders  me  willing  to  serve  you;  therefore 
attend  to  what  I  tell  you.  Whoever  shall  climb  to  the 
top  of  that  mountain  from  which  you  see  the  Golden 
River  issue,  and  shall  cast  into  the  stream  at  its  source 
three  drops  of  holy  water,  for  him,  and  for  him  only, 
the  river  shall  turn  to  gold.  But  no  one  failing  in  his 
first  can  succeed  in  a  second  attempt;  and  if  any  one 
shall  cast  unholy  water  into  the  river,  it  will  overwhelm 
him,  and  he  will  become  a  black  stone."  So  saying,  the 
King  of  the  Golden  River  turned  away,  and  deliber- 
ately walked  into  the  centre  of  the  hottest  flame  of  the 
furnace.  His  figure  became  red,  white,  transparent, 
dazzling,  — a  blaze  of  intense  light,  — rose,  trembled, 
and  disappeared.  The  King  of  the  Golden  River  had 
evaporated. 

"Oh!"  cried  poor  Gluck,  running  to  look  up  the 
chimney  after  him;  "oh  dear,  dear,  dear  me!  My 
mug!  my  mug!  my  mug!" 

Ill 

The  King  of  the  Golden  River  had  hardly  made  his 
extraordinary  exit  before  Hans  and  Schwartz  came 
roaring  into  the  house,  very  savagely  drunk.  The  dis- 
covery of  the  total  loss  of  their  last  piece  of  plate  had 
the  effect  of  sobering  them  just  enough  to  enable  them 
to  stand  over  Gluck,  beating  him  very  steadily  for  a 
quarter  of  an  hour;  at  the  expiration  of  which  period 

21 


MODERN  STORIES 

they  dropped  into  a  couple  of  chairs,  and  requested 
to  know  what  he  had  got  to  say  for  himself.  Gluck  told 
them  his  story,  of  which  of  course  they  did  not  believe 
a  word.  They  beat  him  again,  till  their  arms  were  tired, 
and  staggered  to  bed.  In  the  morning,  however,  the  stead- 
iness with  which  he  adhered  to  his  story  obtained  him 
some  degree  of  credence;  the  immediate  consequence 
of  which  was  that  the  two  brothers,  after  wrangling  a 
long  time  on  the  knotty  question  which  of  them  should 
try  his  fortune  first,  drew  their  swords,  and  began  fight- 
ing. The  noise  of  the  fray  alarmed  the  neighbors,  who, 
finding  they  could  not  pacify  the  combatants,  sent  for 
the  constable. 

Hans,  on  hearing  this,  contrived  to  escape,  and  hid 
himself;  but  Schwartz  was  taken  before  the  magis- 
trate, fined  for  breaking  the  peace,  and  having  drunk 
out  his  last  penny  the  evening  before,  was  thrown  into 
prison  till  he  should  pay. 

When  Hans  heard  this,  he  was  much  delighted,  and 
determined  to  set  out  immediately  for  the  Golden  River. 
How  to  get  the  holy  water  was  the  question.  He  went 
to  the  priest,  but  the  priest  could  not  give  any  holy 
water  to  so  abandoned  a  character.  So  Hans  went  to 
vespers  in  the  evening  for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  and, 
under  pretense  of  crossing  himself,  stole  a  cupful,  and 
returned  home  in  triumph. 

Next  morning  he  got  up  before  the  sun  rose,  put  the 
holy  water  into  a  strong  flask,  and  two  bottles  of  wine 
and  some  meat  in  a  basket,  slung  them  over  his  back, 
took  his  alpine  staff  in  his  hand,  and  set  off  for  the 
mountains. 

22 


THE  KING  OF  THE  GOLDEN  RIVER 

On  his  way  out  of  the  town  he  had  to  pass  the  prison, 
and  as  he  looked  in  at  the  windows,  whom  should  he 
see  but  Schwartz  himself  peeping  out  of  the  bars,  and 
looking  very  disconsolate. 

"Good  morning,  brother,"  said  Hans;  "have  you 
any  message  for  the  King  of  the  Golden  River  ?  " 

Schwartz  gnashed  his  teeth  with  rage,  and  shook  the 
bars  with  all  his  strength;  but  Hans  only  laughed  at 
him,  and  advising  him  to  make  himself  comfortable 
till  he  came  back  again,  shouldered  his  basket,  shook 
the  bottle  of  holy  water  in  Schwartz's  face  till  it  frothed 
again,  and  marched  off  in  the  highest  spirits  in  the 
world. 

It  was,  indeed,  a  morning  that  might  have  made  any 
one  happy,  even  with  no  Golden  River  to  seek  for. 
Level  lines  of  dewy  mist  lay  stretched  along  the  val- 
ley, out  of  which  rose  the  massy  mountains,  — their 
lower  cliffs  in  pale  gray  shadow,  hardly  distinguishable 
from  the  floating  vapor,  but  gradually  ascending  till 
they  caught  the  sunlight,  which  ran  in  sharp  touches 
of  ruddy  color  along  the  angular  crags,  and  pierced,  in 
long  level  rays,  through  their  fringes  of  spear-like  pine. 
Far  above  shot  up  red  splintered  masses  of  castellated 
rock,  jagged  and  shivered  into  myriads  of  fantastic 
forms,  with  here  and  there  a  streak  of  sunlit  snow, 
traced  down  their  chasms  like  a  line  of  forked  light- 
ning; and,  far  beyond,  and  far  above  all  these,  fainter 
than  the  morning  cloud,  but  purer  and  changeless, 
slept,  in  the  blue  sky,  the  utmost  peaks  of  the  eternal 
snow. 

The  Golden  River,  which  sprang  from  one  of  the 

23 


MODERN  STORIES 

lower  and  snowless  elevations,  was  now  nearly  in 
shadow;  all  but  the  uppermost  jets  of  spray,  which  rose 
like  slow  smoke  above  the  undulating  line  of  the  cata- 
ract, and  floated  away  in  feeble  wreaths  upon  the  morn- 
ing wind. 

On  this  object,  and  on  this  alone,  Hans's  eyes  and 
thoughts  were  fixed;  forgetting  the  distance  he  had  to 
traverse,  he  set  off  at  an  imprudent  rate  of  walking, 
which  greatly  exhausted  him  before  he  had  scaled  the 
first  range  of  the  green  and  low  hills.  He  was,  more- 
over, surprised,  on  surmounting  them,  to  find  that  a 
large  glacier,  of  whose  existence,  notwithstanding  his 
previous  knowledge  of  the  mountains,  he  had  been 
absolutely  ignorant,  lay  between  him  and  the  source 
of  the  Golden  River.  He  entered  on  it  with  the  bold- 
ness of  a  practised  mountaineer;  yet  he  thought  he  had 
never  traversed  so  strange  or  so  dangerous  a  glacier  in 
his  life.  The  ice  was  excessively  slippery;  and  out  of  all 
its  chasms  came  wild  sounds  of  gushing  water:  not 
monotonous  or  low,  but  changeful  and  loud,  rising  oc- 
casionally into  drifting  passages  of  wild  melody,  then 
breaking  off  into  short,  melancholy  tones,  or  sudden 
shrieks,  resembling  those  of  human  voices  in  distress 
or  pain.  The  ice  was  broken  into  thousands  of  confused 
shapes,  but  none,  Hans  thought,  like  the  ordinary  forms 
of  splintered  ice.  There  seemed  a  curious  expression 
about  all  their  outlines,  — a  perpetual  resemblance 
to  living  features,  distorted  and  scornful.  Myriads  of 
deceitful  shadows  and  lurid  lights  played  and  floated 
about  and  through  the  pale  blue  pinnacles,  dazzling 
and  confusing  the  sight  of  the  traveler;  while  his  ears 

24 


THE  KING  OF  THE  GOLDEN  RIVER 

grew  dull  and  his  head  giddy  with  the  constant  gush 
and  roar  of  the  concealed  waters.  These  painful  cir- 
cumstances increased  upon  him  as  he  advanced;  the 
ice  crashed  and  yawned  into  fresh  chasms  at  his  feet, 
tottering  spires  nodded  around  him,  and  fell  thundering 
across  his  path;  and  though  he  had  repeatedly  faced 
these  dangers  on  the  most  terrific  glaciers,  and  in  the 
wildest  weather,  it  was  with  a  new  and  oppressive  feel- 
ing of  panic-terror  that  he  leaped  the  last  chasm,  and 
flung  himself,  exhausted  and  shuddering,  on  the  firm 
turf  of  the  mountain. 

He  had  been  compelled  to  abandon  his  basket  of  food, 
which  became  a  perilous  incumbrance  on  the  glacier, 
and  had  now  no  means  of  refreshing  himself  but  by 
breaking  off  and  eating  some  of  the  pieces  of  ice.  This, 
however,  relieved  his  thirst;  an  hour's  repose  recruited 
his  hardy  frame,  and,  with  the  indomitable  spirit  of 
avarice,  he  resumed  his  laborious  journey. 

His  way  now  lay  straight  up  a  ridge  of  bare,  red  rocks, 
without  a  blade  of  grass  to  ease  the  foot  or  a  projecting 
angle  to  afford  an  inch  of  shade  from  the  south  sun.  It 
was  past  noon,  and  the  rays  beat  intensely  upon  the 
steep  path,  while  the  whole  atmosphere  was  motionless, 
and  penetrated  with  heat.  Intense  thirst  was  soon  added 
to  the  bodily  fatigue  with  which  Hans  was  now  afflicted ; 
glance  after  glance  he  cast  on  the  flask  of  water  which 
hung  at  his  belt.  "Three  drops  are  enough,"  at  last 
thought  he;  "I  may,  at  least,  cool  my  lips  with  it." 

He  opened  the  flask,  and  was  raising  it  to  his  lips, 
when  his  eye  fell  on  an  object  lying  on  the  rock  beside 
him;  he  thought  it  moved.    It  was  a  small  dog,  appar- 

25 


MODERN  STORIES 

ently  in  the  last  agony  of  death  from  thirst.  Its  tongue 
was  out,  its  jaws  dry,  its  limbs  extended  lifelessly,  and 
a  swarm  of  black  ants  were  crawling  about  its  lips  and 
throat.  Its  eye  moved  to  the  bottle  which  Hans  held  in 
his  hand.  He  raised  it,  drank,  spurned  the  animal  with 
his  foot,  and  passed  on.  And  he  did  not  know  how  it 
was,  but  he  thought  that  a  strange  shadow  had  sud- 
denly come  across  the  blue  sky. 

The  path  became  steeper  and  more  rugged  every 
moment;  and  the  high  hill  air,  instead  of  refreshing 
him,  seemed  to  throw  his  blood  into  a  fever.  The  noise 
of  the  hill  cataracts  sounded  like  mockery  in  his  ears; 
they  were  all  distant,  and  his  thirst  increased  every  mo- 
ment. Another  hour  passed,  and  he  again  looked  down 
to  the  flask  at  his  side ;  it  was  half  empty,  but  there  was 
much  more  than  three  drops  in  it.  He  stopped  to  open 
it,  and  again,  as  he  did  so,  something  moved  in  the  path 
above  him.  It  was  a  fair  child,  stretched  nearly  lifeless 
on  the  rock,  its  breast  heaving  with  thirst,  its  eyes  closed, 
and  its  lips  parched  and  burning.  Hans  eyed  it  delib- 
erately, drank,  and  passed  on.  And  a  dark  gray  cloud 
came  over  the  sun,  and  long  snake-like  shadows  crept 
up  along  the  mountain-sides.  Hans  struggled  on.  The 
sun  was  sinking,  but  its  descent  seemed  to  bring  no 
coolness ;  the  leaden  weight  of  the  dead  air  pressed  upon 
his  brow  and  heart,  but  the  goal  was  near.  He  saw  the 
cataract  of  the  Golden  River  springing  from  the  hillside, 
scarcely  five  hundred  feet  above  him.  He  paused  for  a 
moment  to  breathe,  and  sprang  on  to  complete  his  task. 

At  this  instant  a  faint  cry  fell  on  his  ear.  He  turned, 
and  saw  a  gray-haired  old  man  extended  on  the  rocks. 

26 


THE  KING  OF  THE  GOLDEN  RIVER 

His  eyes  were  sunk,  his  features  deadly  pale,  and  gath- 
ered into  an  expression  of  despair.  "  Water ! "  —  He 
stretched  his  arms  to  Hans,  and  cried  feebly,  —  "  Wa- 
ter!   I  am  dying." 

"I  have  none,"  replied  Hans;  "thou  hast  had  thy 
share  of  life."  He  strode  over  the  prostrate  body,  and 
darted  on.  And  a  flash  of  blue  lightning  rose  out  of  the 
east,  shaped  like  a  sword ;  it  shook  thrice  over  the  whole 
heaven,  and  left  it  dark  with  one  heavy,  impenetrable 
shade.  The  sun  was  setting;  it  plunged  toward  the 
horizon  like  a  red-hot  ball. 

The  roar  of  the  Golden  River  rose  on  Hans's  ear. 
He  stood  at  the  brink  of  the  chasm  through  which  it 
ran.  Its  waves  were  filled  with  the  red  glory  of  the  sun- 
set; they  shook  their  crest  like  tongues  of  fire,  and 
flashes  of  bloody  light  gleamed  along  their  foam.  Their 
sound  came  mightier  and  mightier  on  his  senses;  his 
brain  grew  giddy  with  the  prolonged  thunder.  Shud- 
dering, he  drew  the  flask  from  his  girdle,  and  hurled  it 
into  the  centre  of  the  torrent.  As  he  did  so,  an  icy  chill 
shot  through  his  limbs;  he . staggered,  shrieked,  and 
fell.  The  waters  closed  over  his  cry.  And  the  moaning 
of  the  river  rose  wildly  into  the  night,  as  it  gushed  over 

The  Black  Stone. 

IV 

Poor  little  Gluck  waited  very  anxiously  alone  in  the 
house  for  Hans's  return.  Finding  he  did  not  come  back, 
he  was  terribly  frightened,  and  went  and  told  Schwartz 
in  the  prison  all  that  had  happened.    Then  Schwartz 

27 


MODERN  STORIES 

was  very  much  pleased,  and  said  that  Hans  must  cer- 
tainly have  been  turned  into  a  black  stone,  and  he  should 
have  all  the  gold  to  himself.  But  Gluck  was  very  sorry, 
and  cried  all  night.  When  he  got  up  in  the  morning 
there  was  no  bread  in  the  house,  nor  any  money;  so 
Gluck  went  and  hired  himself  to  another  goldsmith, 
and  he  worked  so  hard,  and  so  neatly,  and  so  long  every 
day,  that  he  soon  got  money  enough  together  to  pay  his 
brother's  fine,  and  he  went  and  gave  it  all  to  Schwartz, 
and  Schwartz  got  out  of  prison.  Then  Schwartz  was 
quite  pleased,  and  said  he  should  have  some  of  the  gold 
of  the  river.  But  Gluck  only  begged  he  would  go  and  see 
what  had  become  of  Hans. 

Now  when  Schwartz  had  heard  that  Hans  had  stolen 
the  holy  water,  he  thought  to  himself  that  such  a  pro- 
ceeding might  not  be  considered  altogether  correct  by 
the  King  of  the  Golden  River,  and  determined  to  man- 
age matters  better.  So  he  took  some  more  of  Gluck's 
money,  and  went  to  a  bad  priest,  who  gave  him  some 
holy  water  very  readily  for  it.  Then  Schwartz  was  sure 
it  was  all  quite  right.  So  Schwartz  got  up  early  in  the 
morning  before  the  sun  rose,  and  took  some  bread  and 
wine  in  a  basket,  and  put  his  holy  water  in  a  flask,  and 
set  off  for  the  mountains.  Like  his  brother,  he  was 
much  surprised  at  the  sight  of  the  glacier,  and  had  great 
difficulty  in  crossing  it,  even  after  leaving  his  basket 
behind  him.  The  day  was  cloudless,  but  not  bright:  a 
heavy  purple  haze  was  hanging  over  the  sky,  and  the 
hills  looked  lowering  and  gloomy.  And  as  Schwartz 
climbed  the  steep  rock  path,  the  thirst  came  upon  him, 
as  it  had  upon  his  brother,  until  he  lifted  his  flask  to  his 

28 


THE  KING   OF  THE   GOLDEN   RIVER 

lips  to  drink.  Then  he  saw  the  fair  child  lying  near  him 
on  the  rocks,  and  it  cried  to  him,  and  moaned  for  water. 

"Water,  indeed!"  said  Schwartz.  "I  haven't  half 
enough  for  myself,"  and  passed  on.  And  as  he  went  he 
thought  the  sunbeams  grew  more  dim,  and  he  saw  a 
low  bank  of  black  cloud  rising  out  of  the  west;  and 
when  he  had  climbed  for  another  hour  the  thirst  over- 
came him  again,  and  he  would  have  drunk.  Then  he 
saw  the  old  man  lying  before  him  on  the  path,  and  heard 
him  cry  out  for  water.  "  Water,  indeed ! "  said  Schwartz. 
"I  have  n't  half  enough  for  myself,"  and  on  he  went. 

Then  again  the  light  seemed  to  fade  from  before  his 
eyes,  and  he  looked  up,  and,  behold,  a  mist  of  the  color 
of  blood  had  come  over  the  sun ;  and  the  bank  of  black 
cloud  had  risen  very  high,  and  its  edges  were  tossing 
and  tumbling  like  the  waves  of  the  angry  sea.  And  they 
cast  long  shadows,  which  flickered  over  Schwartz's 
path. 

Then  Schwartz  climbed  for  another  hour,  and  again 
his  thirst  returned ;  and  as  he  lifted  his  flask  to  his  lips, 
he  thought  he  saw  his  brother  Hans  lying  exhausted  on 
the  path  before  him,  and  as  he  gazed  the  figure  stretched 
its  arms  to  him,  and  cried  for  water.  "  Ha,  ha,"  laughed 
Schwartz,  "  are  you  there  ?  Remember  the  prison  bars, 
my  boy.  Water,  indeed !  do  you  suppose  I  carried  it  all 
the  way  up  here  for  you  ?  "  And  he  strode  over  the  fig- 
ure; yet,  as  he  passed,  he  thought  he  saw  a  strange  ex- 
pression of  mockery  about  its  lips.  And,  when  he  had 
gone  a  few  yards  farther,  he  looked  back;  but  the  fig- 
ure was  not  there. 

And  a  sudden  horror  came  over  Schwartz,  he  knew 


MODERN  STORIES 

not  why;  but  the  thirst  for  gold  prevailed  over  his  fear, 
and  he  rushed  on.  And  the  bank  of  black  cloud  rose  to 
the  zenith,  and  out  of  it  came  bursts  of  spiry  lightning, 
and  waves  of  darkness  seemed  to  heave  and  float  be- 
tween their  flashes  over  the  whole  heavens.  And  the 
sky  where  the  sun  was  setting  was  all  level,  and  like  a 
lake  of  blood ;  and  a  strong  wind  came  out  of  that  sky, 
tearing  its  crimson  clouds  into  fragments,  and  scatter- 
ing them  far  into  the  darkness.  And  when  Schwartz 
stood  by  the  brink  of  the  Golden  River,  its  waves  were 
black  like  thunder-clouds,  but  their  foam  was  like  fire; 
and  the  roar  of  the  waters  below  and  the  thunder  above 
met,  as  he  cast  the  flask  into  the  stream.  And,  as  he 
did  so,  the  lightning  glared  in  his  eyes,  and  the  earth 
gave  way  beneath  him,  and  the  waters  closed  over  his 
cry.  And  the  moaning  of  the  river  rose  wildly  into  the 
night,  as  it  gushed  over 

The  Two  Black  Stones. 

V 

When  Gluck  found  that  Schwartz  did  not  come  back, 
he  was  very  sorry,  and  did  not  know  what  to  do.  He 
had  no  money,  and  was  obliged  to  go  and  hire  himself 
again  to  the  goldsmith,  who  worked  him  very  hard, 
and  gave  him  very  little  money.  So,  after  a  month  or 
two,  Gluck  grew  tired,  and  made  up  his  mind  to  go 
and  try  his  fortune  with  the  Golden  River.  "  The  little 
king  looked  very  kind,"  thought  he.  "I  don't  think  he 
will  turn  me  into  a  black  stone."  So  he  went  to  the  priest, 
and  the  priest  gave  him  some  holy  water  as  soon  as  he 

30 


THE  KING  OF  THE  GOLDEN  RIVER 

asked  for  it.  Then  Gluck  took  some  bread  in  his  basket, 
and  the  bottle  of  water,  and  set  off  very  early  for  the 
mountains. 

If  the  glacier  had  occasioned  a  great  deal  of  fatigue 
to  his  brothers,  it  was  twenty  times  worse  for  him,  who 
was  neither  so  strong  nor  so  practised  on  the  moun- 
tains. He  had  several  very  bad  falls,  lost  his  basket  and 
bread,  and  was  very  much  frightened  at  the  strange 
noises  under  the  ice.  He  lay  a  long  time  to  rest  on  the 
grass,  after  he  had  got  over,  and  began  to  climb  the  hill 
just  in  the  hottest  part  of  the  day.  When  he  had  climbed 
for  an  hour,  he  got  dreadfully  thirsty,  and  was  going  to 
drink  like  his  brothers,  when  he  saw  an  old  man  com- 
ing down  the  path  above  him,  looking  very  feeble,  and 
leaning  on  a  staff.  "  My  son,"  said  the  old  man,  "  I  am 
faint  with  thirst;  give  me  some  of  that  water."  Then 
Gluck  looked  at  him,  and  when  he  saw  that  he  was  pale 
and  weary,  he  gave  him  the  water.  "  Only  pray  don't 
drink  it  all,"  said  Gluck.  But  the  old  man  drank  a  great 
deal,  and  gave  him  back  the  bottle  two  thirds  empty. 
Then  he  bade  him  good  speed,  and  Gluck  went  on 
again  merrily.  And  the  path  became  easier  to  his  feet, 
and  two  or  three  blades  of  grass  appeared  upon  it,  and 
some  grasshoppers  began  singing  on  the  bank  beside 
it;  and  Gluck  thought  he  had  never  heard  such  merry 
singing. 

Then  he  went  on  for  another  hour,  and  the  thirst  in- 
creased on  him  so  that  he  thought  he  should  be  forced 
to  drink.  But,  as  he  raised  the  flask,  he  saw  a  little  child 
lying  panting  by  the  roadside,  and  it  cried  out  piteously 
tor  water.   Then  Gluck  struggled  with  himself  and  de- 

31 


MODERN  STORIES 

termined  to  bear  the  thirst  a  little  longer;  and  he  put 
the  bottle  to  the  child's  lips,  and  it  drank  it  all  but  a  few 
drops.  Then  it  smiled  on  him  and  got  up,  and  ran  down 
the  hill;  and  Gluck  looked  after  it,  till  it  became  as 
small  as  a  little  star,  and  then  turned,  and  began  climb- 
ing again.  And  then  there  were  all  kinds  of  sweet  flowers 
growing  on  the  rocks,  bright  green  moss,  with  pale  pink 
starry  flowers,  and  soft-belled  gentians,  more  blue  than 
the  sky  at  its  deepest,  and  pure  white  transparent  lilies. 
And  crimson  and  purple  butterflies  darted  hither  and 
thither,  and  the  sky  sent  down  such  pure  light  that  Gluck 
had  never  felt  so  happy  in  his  life. 

Yet,  when  he  had  climbed  for  another  hour,  his  thirst 
became  intolerable  again;  and,  when  he  looked  at  his 
bottle,  he  saw  that  there  were  only  five  or  six  drops  left 
in  it,  and  he  could  not  venture  to  drink.  And  as  he  was 
hanging  the  flask  to  his  belt  again,  he  saw  a  little  dog 
lying  on  the  rocks,  gasping  for  breath,  —  just  as  Hans 
had  seen  it  on  the  day  of  his  ascent.  And  Gluck  stopped 
and  looked  at  it,  and  then  at  the  Golden  River,  not  five 
hundred  yards  above  him ;  and  he  thought  of  the  dwarf's 
words,  that  no  one  could  succeed,  except  in  his  first 
attempt;  and  he  tried  to  pass  the  dog,  but  it  whined 
piteously,  and  Gluck  stopped  again.  "Poor  beastie," 
said  Gluck,  *  it  '11  be  dead  when  I  come  down  again,  if 
I  don't  help  it."  Then  he  looked  closer  and  closer  at  it, 
and  its  eye  turned  on  him  so  mournfully  that  he  could 
not  stand  it.  w  Confound  the  king  and  his  gold,  too ! " 
said  Gluck;  and  he  opened  the  flask,  and  poured  all 
the  water  into  the  dog's  mouth. 

The  dog  sprang  up  and  stood  on  its  hind  legs.    Its 

32 


THE  KING  OF  THE   GOLDEN  RIVER 

tail  disappeared,  its  ears  became  long,  longer,  silky, 
golden;  its  nose  became  very  red,  its  eyes  became  very 
twinkling;  in  three  seconds  the  dog  was  gone,  and  be- 
fore Gluck  stood  his  old  acquaintance,  the  Xing  of  the 
Golden  River. 

"Thank  you,"  said  the  monarch;  "but  don't  be 
frightened,  it's  all  right;"  for  Gluck  showed  manifest 
symptoms  of  consternation  at  this  unlooked-for  reply 
to  his  last  observation.  "  Why  did  n't  you  come  before," 
continued  the  dwarf,  "instead  of  sending  me  those 
rascally  brothers  of  yours,  for  me  to  have  the  trouble 
of  turning  into  stones?  Very  hard  stones  they  make, 
too." 

"  Oh,  dear  me ! "  said  Gluck,  "  have  you  really  been 
so  cruel?" 

"  Cruel  ? "  said  the  dwarf.  "  They  poured  unholy  water 
into  my  stream,  —  do  you  suppose  I  'm  going  to  allow 
that?" 

"Why,"  said  Gluck,  "I  am  sure,  sir,  — your  majesty, 
I  mean,  — they  got  the  water  out  of  the  church  font." 

"Very  probably,"  replied  the  dwarf;  "but,"  and  his 
countenance  grew  stern  as  he  spoke,  "  the  water  which 
has  been  refused  to  the  cry  of  the  weary  and  dying  is 
unholy,  though  it  had  been  blessed  by  every  saint  in 
heaven;  and  the  water  which  is  found  in  the  vessel  of 
mercy  is  holy,  though  it  had  been  defiled  with  corpses." 

So  saying,  the  dwarf  stooped  and  plucked  a  lily  that 
grew  at  his  feet.  On  its  white  leaves  hung  three  drops 
of  clear  dew,  and  the  dwarf  shook  them  into  the  flask 
which  Gluck  held  in  his  hand.  "Cast  these  into  the 
river,"  he  said,  "and  descend  on  the  other  side  of  the 

S3 


MODERN  STORIES 

mountains  into  the  Treasure  Valley.  And  so  good 
speed." 

As  he  spoke,  the  figure  of  the  dwarf  became  indis- 
tinct. The  playing  colors  of  his  robe  formed  themselves 
into  a  prismatic  mist  of  dewy  light;  he  stood  for  an 
instant  veiled  with  them  as  with  the  belt  of  a  broad 
rainbow.  The  colors  grew  faint,  the  mist  rose  into  the 
air;  the  monarch  had  evaporated. 

And  Gluck  climbed  to  the  brink  of  the  Golden  River, 
and  its  waves  were  as  clear  as  crystal  and  as  brilliant 
as  the  sun.  And  when  he  cast  the  three  drops  of  dew 
into  the  stream,  there  opened  where  they  fell  a  small 
circular  whirlpool,  into  which  the  waters  descended 
with  a  musical  noise. 

Gluck  stood  watching  it  for  some  time,  very  much 
disappointed,  because  not  only  the  river  was  not  turned 
into  gold,  but  its  waters  seemed  much  diminished  in 
quantity.  Yet  he  obeyed  his  friend  the  dwarf,  and  de- 
scended the  other  side  of  the  mountains,  toward  the 
Treasure  Valley;  and,  as  he  went,  he  thought  he  heard 
the  noise  of  water  working  its  way  under  the  ground. 
And  when  he  came  in  sight  of  the  Treasure  Valley,  be- 
hold, a  river  like  the  Golden  River  was  springing  from 
a  new  cleft  of  the  rocks  above  it,  and  was  flowing  in 
innumerable  streams  among  the  dry  heaps  of  red  sand. 

And  as  Gluck  gazed,  fresh  grass  sprang  beside  the 
new  streams,  and  creeping  plants  grew,  and  climbed 
among  the  moistening  soil.  Young  flowers  opened  sud- 
denly along  the  river  sides,  as  stars  leap  out  when 
twilight  is  deepening,  and  thickets  of  myrtle  and  ten- 
drils of  vine  cast  lengthening  shadows  over  the  valley 

34 


THE  KING  OF  THE  GOLDEN  RIVER 

as  they  grew.  And  thus  the  Treasure  Valley  became  a 
garden  again,  and  the  inheritance  which  had  been  lost 
by  cruelty,  was  regained  by  love. 

And  Gluck  went  and  dwelt  in  the  valley,  and  the  poor 
were  never  driven  from  his  door;  so  that  his  barns  be- 
came full  of  corn,  and  his  house  of  treasure.  And,  for 
him,  the  river  had,  according  to  the  dwarf's  promise, 
become  a  River  of  Gold. 

And  to  this  day  the  inhabitants  of  the  valley  point 
out  the  place  where  the  three  drops  of  holy  dew  were 
cast  into  the  stream,  and  trace  the  course  of  the  Golden 
River  under  the  ground,  until  it  emerges  in  the  Treasure 
Valley.  And  at  the  top  of  the  cataract  of  the  Golden 
River  are  still  to  be  seen  two  black  stones,  round  which 
the  waters  howl  mournfully  every  day  at  sunset;  and 
these  stones  are  still  called,  by  the  people  of  the  valley, 

The  Black  Brothers. 


AT  AUTON   HOUSE 

By  Augustus  Hoppin 
I 

IN  THE  AUTON  NURSERY 

A  LOVE  for  drawing  was  a  marked  characteris- 
tic among  the  Auton  boys.  Deb 'rah  used  to  say 
that  we  got  it  from  our  "father's  side,"  whatever  that 
expression  might  mean;  we  stimulated  it  by  constant 
exercise,  so  that  it  became  a  source  of  intense  enjoy- 
ment. A  habit  of  observation  resulted  in  great  facility 
of  expression,  which  converted  Auton  nursery  into  an 
infant  drawing-school.  The  delineation  of  figures  was 
our  especial  hobby,  so  that  whenever  a  new  drawing- 
book  came  into  our  possession  we  immediately  set  to 
work  on  some  favorite  beast,  generally  a  horse.  We 
drew  his  ears  first  because  this  gave  us  time  to  decide, 
as  we  proceeded,  whether  he  should  be  running  away  or 
only  in  the  stable.  A  favorite  way  we  had  was  to  sit  in 
little  chairs,  all  in  a  row,  with  our  slates  on  our  knees, 
and  see  who  could  draw  the  best  lion  or  the  fastest  trot- 
ter. These  sketches,  when  completed,  were  submitted 
to  our  older  brothers  for  judgment.  Sometimes  Father 
Auton  would  visit  the  nursery,  and  with  his  great  thumb 
rub  out  the  fore  legs  of  our  favorite  horse,  telling  us  that 
we  "never  saw  a  leg  crooked  up  in  that  way;  it  was 

36 


AT  AUTON  HOUSE 

all  wrong,  and  we  must  try  again."  So  away  we  went 
to  work  once  more,  and  with  better  results. 

In  these  friendly  bouts  we  discovered  the  secret  of 
making  a  horse  look  as  if  he  were  actually  moving  along 
the  road.  We  found  that  motion  could  not  be  indicated 
unless  all  the  legs  of  the  animal  were  off  the  ground  at 
once,  and  that  the  moment  any  part  of  him  touched  the 
earth  this  idea  of  motion  ceased.  We  tried  in  all  sorts 
of  ways  to  prove  this.  We  got  down  upon  our  hands 
and  knees  and  trotted  about  the  nursery  floor.  We  sat 
at  the  window  listening  to  the  sound  of  a  horse  trotting 
on  the  cobble-stones.  We  watched  the  animals  in  every 
possible  position  as  they  sped  by  us,  to  detect  some  point 
of  time  when  all  four  legs  were  off  the  ground  at  once. 
After  many  weary  watchings  we  settled  the  question  in 
the  affirmative,  so  that  Auton  nursery  became  the  last 
court  of  appeal  on  all  trotting  questions. 

This  practice  of  observation  was  valuable  to  us  in  a 
variety  of  ways.  For  instance,  in  order  to  catch  the 
correct  movement  of  a  tiger  dispatching  his  victim, 
Deb 'rah  would  allow  us  to  take  our  beefsteak  and  our 
cutlets  out  of  our  plates  down  on  the  nursery  floor. 
Here,  crouching  over  our  imaginary  hunter  or  expir- 
ing buffalo  between  our  paws,  we  tore  off  great  pieces 
of  his  flesh  from  the  bone,  and,  raising  aloft  our  defi- 
ant but  greasy  visages,  swallowed  the  morsel  without 
mastication. 

In  this  way  we  caught  what  we  called  the  "feel"  of 
the  tiger,  and  could  thus  impart  to  our  representation 
of  him  a  greater  amount  of  snarl  and  ferocity.  Then 
again,  in  the  same  manner,  by  constant  practice  we 

37 


MODERN   STORIES 

could  imitate  the  proud  walk  of  a  rooster  among  the 
hens.  We  scratched  up  imaginary  Easter- worms ;  we 
cocked  our  heads  from  side  to  side,  as  if  our  eyes  were 
on  our  temples.  We  flapped  our  arms  and  crew  from 
the  backs  of  chairs  and  imaginary  hen-coops,  and  pecked 
at  fancied  pullets  that  presumed  to  come  too  near  our 
harem.  Thus  we  imbibed  something  of  that  "inner 
consciousness"  of  an  ordinary  red  rooster,  which  en- 
abled us  to  draw  him  out  on  the  slate  so  vividly  that 
one  could  almost  hear  him  crow.  The  natural  result 
of  this  artistic  diathesis  were  moving  dioramas,  stuffed 
elephants,  living  tableaux,  and  private  theatricals.  On 
the  evenings  of  such  exhibitions,  our  sisters  were  sta- 
tioned at  the  confectionery  table,  where  diminutive 
sticks  of  candy  were  sold  for  a  cent  apiece  to  our  long- 
suffering  audience,  who  sat  for  our  sakes  on  the  hardest 
kind  of  boards  in  Egyptian  darkness  for  two  mortal 
hours.  The  fund  realized  from  this  source  was  expended 
in  blue  cambric  and  pasteboard  for  the  diorama. 

F.  Auton  carved  with  his  jack-knife  the  little  wooden 
automata  which  figured  in  the  different  scenes.  Bill 
Paine  was  the  magician  who  appeared  in  the  interludes 
and  swallowed  fire,  while  H.  Auton  manipulated  the 
strings  which  set  in  motion  the  dioramic  world.  One 
of  our  scenes  represented  a  cobbler's  shop.  The  cur- 
tain rose.  The  shoemaker  sat  at  his  bench  pegging  his 
shoe.  A  knock  was  heard  at  the  door.  The  old  fellow 
raised  his  head  and  asked  the  stranger  to  walk  in.  The 
door  opened,  a  well-dressed  individual  entered  who 
asked  to  have  his  shoe  mended.  Up  went  his  leg  to 
exhibit  the  rent.    The  cobbler  inspected  it,  and  said  he 

38 


AT  AUTON  HOUSE 

would  patch  it  the  next  day.  Down  went  the  leg.  Right 
about  went  the  stranger.  The  door  flew  open  and  he 
disappeared,  whereupon  the  cobbler  dropped  his  head 
and  commenced  pegging  away  again  at  his  shoe,  and 
the  scene  ended  amid  the  plaudits  of  the  audience  hid- 
den in  the  cimmerian  darkness  above  alluded  to.  After- 
wards came  a  tiger  scene  in  South  Africa,  and  a  black- 
smith shop  on  the  road  to  Pomfret,  and  a  pasteboard 
naval  battle  in  the  War  of  1812;  and  enough  more 
wonderful  things  fully  worth  the  price  of  admission, 
which  was  five  cents.  We  used  to  print  and  sell  the 
tickets  for  these  dioramas  weeks  before  we  had  done 
the  first  thing  to  the  exhibition  itself.  The  advantage 
of  this  arrangement  was  that  quite  often  the  affair  never 
came  off,  and  yet  the  buyers  of  our  tickets  scarcely 
ever  consented  to  take  back  their  cash.  This  was  a  mean 
trick  of  ours  to  make  money,  but  the  idea  must  have 
been  put  into  our  heads  by  those  strange  boys  who  came 
into  our  yard  and  were  forever  begging  to  "belong." 
This  word,  translated,  meant  to  become  one  of  the  pro- 
prietors of  the  company,  having  a  right  to  a  full  share 
in  the  profits  without  doing  any  of  the  work.  It  was  a 
wonderful  sight  to  creep  under  the  gay  drapery  which 
concealed  the  machinery  of  our  exhibition,  and  view  the 
spot  where  H.  Auton  pulled  that  wilderness  of  strings 
which  set  in  motion  the  little  world  above  him.  One 
small  smoky  lamp  from  the  kitchen  stood  in  the  corner 
and  shed  a  flickering  light  around.  A  tangled  web  of 
threads  with  labels  attached  to  the  ends  hung  from 
little  holes  over  his  head.  One  string  went  to  the  old 
cobbler's  arm,  another  lifted  the  stranger's  leg.    This 

39 


MODERN  STORIES 

one  made  the  Bengal  tiger  spring  at  the  native,  and 
that  pulled  down  the  mainmast  of  the  Guerriere,  shot 
away  by  the  brave  boys  in  the  Constitution;  and  so 
on,  through  all  the  scenes.  H.  Auton  sat  on  a  little 
cricket  with  his  legs  crossed  and  his  head  bent  back, 
studying  the  forest  of  threads  above  him.  Great  drops 
of  perspiration  stood  on  his  upper  lip  and  dropped  off 
his  chin.  He  breathed  an  atmosphere  which  would  have 
suffocated  anybody  but  a  boy  or  an  Esquimaux. 

II 

CHRISTMAS   AT   AUTON   HOUSE 

Queer  as  it  may  seem,  the  Autons  never  hung  up 
their  stockings  at  Christmas.  They  put  out  their  shoes 
instead.  Why  it  was  so  is  a  question,  but  as  no  Auton 
ever  did  it,  no  Auton  ever  would.  We  regularly  sang, 
however,  Mr.  Moore's  "Night  before  Christmas,"  and 
thought  we  had  fully  complied  with  the  requirements 
of  the  lines :  — 

"The  stockings  were  hung  by  the  chimney  with  care, 
In  the  hopes  that  St.  Nicholas  soon  would  be  there." 

Possibly  this  departure  from  the  ancient  rule  arose 
from  our  custom  of  receiving  presents  after  breakfast, 
and  also  that  our  great,  great,  great  grandmother  was 
a  French  Huguenot,  and  preferred  the  sabot.  We  only 
troubled  Santa  Claus  in  the  early  morning  for  a  bundle 
of  candy,  and  such  other  knickknacks  as  he  might  feel 
inclined  to  bestow. 

Our  boots  and  shoes  being  the  chosen  vessels  to  re- 

40 


AT  AUTON  HOUSE 

ceive  this  early  freight,  they  were  set  on  the  mahogany 
table  in  the  upper  hall,  and  were  ranged  from  father's 
down  to  the  eleventh  Auton's  in  regular  gradation. 

Our  big  brother  was  expected  home  by  the  early  boat, 
so  that,  together  with  other  anticipations,  drove  sleep 
from  our  pillows.  From  hour  to  hour  on  the  night  pre- 
ceding Christmas  we  raised  our  uneasy,  tumbled  heads 
from  our  couches,  hoping  it  was  light  enough  to  scream 
out,  in  one  word,  "  wishy'rmerryChristmas,"  but  some- 
how the  sun  stuck  down  and  wouldn't  "hurry  up." 
But  at  the  faintest  suspicion  of  dawn  we  thumped  poor 
Deb'rah  with  our  feet  to  go  for  our  shoes.  Oh!  how 
dead  with  sleep  that  much-abused  nurse  used  to  be, 
curled  up  on  the  edge  of  the  bed!  Knowing  that  she 
would  be  called  upon  at  a  moment's  notice,  this  model 
guardian  of  babyhood  always  kept  about  her  a  flannel 
garment,  ready  to  fly  at  the  first  thump.  I  can  remem- 
ber, as  if  it  were  yesterday,  just  how  that  flannel  pet- 
ticoat felt  to  my  boyish  feet  as  I  pushed  and  pushed  her, 
little  by  little,  off  the  edge  of  the  bed  to  wake  her  up. 

As  the  sun  mounted  the  heavens  six  or  eight  Autons, 
with  shoes  before  them,  sat  bolt  upright  in  bed  destroy- 
ing their  appetites. 

By  eight  o'clock  Auton  nursery  was  nauseated,  and 
the  bare  idea  of  breakfast  was  revolting.  Our  big  bro- 
ther, however,  was  not  at  all  excited  by  this  exceptional 
state  of  things.  He  drank  his  coffee,  ate  his  u  drop  cakes," 
and  conversed  with  Father  Auton  about  the  news  from 
the  metropolis  as  if  there  never  was  any  such  thing  as 
Christmas.  With  one  leg  crossed  contentedly  over  the 
other  he  read,  and  read,  and  read  the  morning  paper 

41 


MODERN  STORIES 

until  we  children  were  fairly  exasperated  with  him. 
There  could  be  no  fun  upstairs  until  he  came,  because 
Mother  Auton  would  have  waited  for  him  a  whole  day, 
if  necessary,  before  distributing  the  presents. 

To  our  great  relief  he  joined  at  last  the  noisy  throng 
as  it  swept  like  a  breeze  up  the  front  stairs  into  "  mother's 
room." 

Deb'rah's  small-armed  half-sister  "Ruby"  used  to 
say,  when  inquiry  was  made  concerning  her  health, 
"that  she  was  pretty  poorly,"  and  that  expresses  the 
state  of  Mother  Auton 's  feelings  a  good  deal  of  the  time 
at  that  epoch.  She  thought  that  each  Christmas  would 
be  the  last  one  she  was  to  be  with  us,  so  that  in  the 
midst  of  our  hilarity  we  always  had  a  tear  in  one  eye. 
If  the  amount  of  delight  which  danced  in  our  expectant 
hearts  on  those  Christmas  mornings  could  have  been 
fairly  put  into  the  scales  and  held  there  long  enough,  it 
would  have  weighed  down  a  continent. 

Mother  Auton  went  to  one  particular  deep  drawer, 
in  one  particular  bureau,  on  one  particular  side  of  the 
room,  and  there,  standing  before  its  open  mouth,  with 
tears  in  her  dear  eyes  and  a  trembling  in  her  speech,  she 
placed  in  our  hands  the  little  tokens  of  her  affection, 
one  after  another,  from  father  down  to  Rosannah,  the 
cook,  with  such  little  speeches  as  — 

"Accept  this,  my  dear,  as  a  fond  token  of  affection 
from  your  mother,"  etc.;  and  "This  silk,  dear  E.,  was 
the  nearest  I  could  get  like  the  one  you  wanted  so  much," 
etc.;  or  "Take  this  remembrance,  C.  Auton,  from  your 
loving  mother,"  etc.;  and  "This,  my  darling,  is  a  small 
affair,  but,"  etc.,  etc.,  etc.    And  so  she  went  down  the 

42 


AT  AUTON  HOUSE 

whole  row,  keeping  us  just  between  smiles  and  tears 
all  the  time,  until  the  festival  was  closed.  Dear,  dear 
Mother  Auton ! 

The  remembrance  of  those  beatific  days,  that  mys- 
tic association  which  clings  to  Christmas-tide,  and  the 
precious  memories  which  they  bring  to  us  of  maternal 
love  and  noble  unselfishness,  have  imparted  strength 
to  endure  that  bitter  burden  of  disappointment  and 
death  which  sooner  or  later  falls  to  the  lot  of  every 
human  creature. 


TWO  LITTLE   RUNAWAYS 

By  Kate  Douglas  Wiggin 

IS'POSE  they'll  make  an  awful  row  at  being  sep- 
arated, won't  they  ?  "  asked  the  younger  woman. 

"Oh,  like  as  not;  but  they'll  have  to  have  their  row 
and  get  over  it,"  said  Mrs.  Simmons,  easily.  "You  can 
take  Timothy  to  the  Orphan  Asylum  first,  and  then 
come  back,  and  I  '11  carry  the  baby  to  the  Home  of  the 
Ladies'  Relief  and  Protection  Society;  and  if  they  yell 
they  can  yell,  and  take  it  out  in  yellin';  they  won't  get 
the  best  of  Nancy  Simmons." 

"  Don't  talk  so  loud,  Nancy,  for  mercy's  sake.  If  the 
boy  hears  you,  he'll  begin  to  take  on,  and  we  shan't 
get  a  wink  of  sleep.  Don't  let  'em  know  what  you're 
goin'  to  do  with  'em  till  the  last  minute,  or  you  '11  have 
trouble  as  sure  as  we  sit  here." 

"Oh,  they  are  sound  asleep,"  responded  Mrs.  Sim- 
mons, with  an  uneasy  look  at  the  half-open  door.  "I 
went  in  and  dragged  a  pillow  out  from  under  Timothy's 
head,  and  he  never  budged.  He  was  sleepin'  like  a  log, 
and  so  was  Gay.  Now,  shut  up,  Et,  and  let  me  get  three 
winks  myself.  You  take  the  lounge,  and  I'll  stretch 
out  in  two  chairs.  Wake  me  up  at  eight  o'clock,  if  I 
don't  wake  myself;  for  I'm  clean  tired  out  with  all  this 
fussin'  and  plannin',  and  I  feel  stupid  enough  to  sleep 
till  kingdom  come." 

44 


TWO  LITTLE  RUNAWAYS 

When  the  snores  of  the  two  watchers  fell  on  the  still- 
ness of  the  death-chamber,  with  that  cheerful  regular- 
ity that  betokens  the  sleep  of  the  truly  good,  a  quiet 
figure  crept  out  of  the  bed  in  the  adjoining  room  and 
closed  the  door  noiselessly,  but  with  trembling  fingers; 
stealing  then  to  the  window  to  look  out  at  the  dirty 
street  and  the  gray  sky,  over  which  the  first  faint  streaks 
of  dawn  were  beginning  to  creep. 

It  was  little  Timothy  Jessup  (God  alone  knows 
whether  he  had  any  right  to  that  special  patronymic), 
but  not  the  very  same  Tim  Jessup  who  had  kissed  the 
baby  Gay  in  her  little  crib,  and  gone  to  sleep  on  his 
own  hard  bed  in  that  room,  a  few  hours  before.  As  he 
stood  shivering  at  the  window,  one  thin  hand  hard 
pressed  upon  his  heart  to  still  its  beating,  there  was  a 
light  of  sudden  resolve  in  his  eyes,  a  new-born  look  of 
anxiety  on  his  unchildlike  face. 

"I  will  not  have  Gay  protectioned  and  reliefed,  and 
I  will  not  be  taken  away  from  her  and  sent  to  a  'sylum, 
where  I  can  never  find  her  again!"  and  with  these 
defiant  words  trembling,  half  spoken,  on  his  lips,  he 
glanced  from  the  unconscious  form  in  the  crib  to  the 
terrible  door,  which  might  open  at  any  moment  and 
divide  him  from  his  heart's  delight,  his  darling,  his 
treasure,  his  only  joy,  his  own,  own  baby  Gay. 

But  what  should  he  do  ?  Run  away :  that  was  the  only 
solution  of  the  matter,  and  no  very  difficult  one  either. 
The  cruel  women  were  asleep;  the  awful  Thing  that 
had  been  Flossy  would  never  speak  again;  and  no  one 
else  in  Minerva  Court  cared  enough  for  them  to  pursue 
them  very  far  or  very  long. 

45 


MODERN  STORIES 

(e  And  so,"  thought  Timothy,  swiftly,  "  I  will  get  things 
ready,  take  Gay,  and  steal  softly  out  of  the  back  door, 
and  run  away  to  the  'truly'  country,  where  none  of 
these  bad  people  ever  can  find  us,  and  where  I  can  get 
a  mother  for  Gay,  —  somebody  to  'dopt  her  and  love  her 
till  I  grow  up  a  man  and  take  her  to  live  with  me." 

The  moment  this  thought  darted  into  Timothy's 
mind,  it  began  to  shape  itself  in  definite  action. 

Gabrielle,  or  Lady  Gay,  as  Flossy  called  her,  in  honor 
of  her  favorite  stage  heroine,  had  been  tumbled  into 
her  crib  half  dressed  the  night  before.  The  only  vehicle 
kept  for  her  use  in  the  family  stables  was  a  clothes- 
basket,  mounted  on  four  wooden  wheels  and  cushioned 
with  a  dingy  shawl.  A  yard  of  clothes-line  was  tied  on 
one  end  of  it,  and  in  this  humble  conveyance  the  princess 
would  have  to  be  transported  from  the  Ogre's  castle; 
for  she  was  scarcely  old  enough  to  accompany  the 
prince  on  foot,  even  if  he  had  dared  to  risk  detec- 
tion by  waking  her:  so  the  clothes-basket  must  be  her 
chariot,  and  Timothy  her  charioteer,  as  on  many  a  less 
fateful  expedition. 

After  he  had  changed  his  ragged  night-gown  for  a 
shabby  suit  of  clothes,  he  took  Gay's  one  clean  apron 
out  of  a  rickety  bureau  drawer  ("for  I  can  never  find 
a  mother  for  her  if  she's  too  dirty,"  he  thought),  her 
Sunday  hat  from  the  same  receptacle,  and  last  of  all 
a  comb,  and  a  faded  Japanese  parasol  that  stood  in  a 
corner.  These  he  deposited  under  the  old  shawl  that 
decorated  the  floor  of  the  chariot.  He  next  groped  his 
way  in  the  dim  light  toward  a  mantel-shelf,  and  took 
down  a  savings-bank,  —  a  florid   little  structure  with 

46 


TWO  LITTLE  RUNAWAYS 

"  Bank  of  England  "  stamped  over  the  miniature  door, 
into  which  the  jovial  gentleman  who  frequented  the 
house  often  slipped  pieces  of  silver  for  the  children, 
and  into  which  Flossy  dipped  only  when  she  was  in  a 
state  of  temporary  financial  embarrassment.  Timothy 
did  not  dare  to  jingle  it;  he  could  only  hope  that  as 
Flossy  had  not  been  in  her  usual  health  of  late  (though 
in  more  than  her  usual  "spirits"),  she  had  not  felt 
obliged  to  break  the  bank. 

Now  for  provisions.  There  were  plenty  of  "funeral 
baked  meats"  in  the  kitchen;  and  he  hastily  gathered 
a  dozen  cookies  into  a  towel,  and  stowed  them  in  the 
coach  with  the  other  sinews  of  war. 

So  far,  well  and  good;  but  the  worst  was  to  come. 
With  his  heart  beating  in  his  bosom  like  a  trip-ham- 
mer, and  his  eyes  dilated  with  fear,  he  stepped  to  the 
door  between  the  two  rooms,  and  opened  it  softly.  Two 
thundering  snores,  pitched  in  such  different  keys  that 
they  must  have  proceeded  from  two  separate  sets  of 
nasal  organs,  reassured  the  boy.  He  looked  out  into  the 
alley.  "Not  a  creature  was  stirring,  not  even  a  mouse." 
The  Minerva  Courtiers  could  n't  be  owls  and  hawks 
too,  and  there  was  not  even  the  ghost  of  a  sound  to  be 
heard.  Satisfied  that  all  was  well,  Timothy  went  back 
to  the  bedroom,  and  lifted  the  battered  clothes-basket, 
trucks  and  all,  in  his  slender  arms,  carried  it  up  the 
alley  and  down  the  street  a  little  distance,  and  deposited 
it  on  the  pavement  beside  a  vacant  lot.  This  done,  he 
sped  back  to  the  house.  " How  beautifully  they  snore!" 
he  thought,  as  he  stood  again  on  the  threshold.  "  Shall 
I   leave  'em  a  letter  ?     P'raps   I    better  —  and    then 

47 


MODERN  STORIES 

they  won't  follow  us  and  bring  us  back."  So  he  scrib- 
bled a  line  on  a  bit  of  torn  paper  bag,  and  pinned  it 
on  the  enemies'  door. 

A  kind  Lady  is  goin  to  Adopt  us  it  is  a  Grate  ways 
off  so  do  not  Hunt  good  by.  Tim. 

Now  all  was  ready.  No;  one  thing  more.  Timothy 
had  been  met  in  the  street  by  a  pretty  young  girl  a  few 
weeks  before.  The  love  of  God  was  smiling  in  her  heart, 
the  love  of  children  shining  in  her  eyes;  and  she  led 
him,  a  willing  captive,  into  a  mission  Sunday-school 
near  by.  And  so  much  in  earnest  was  the  sweet  little 
teacher,  and  so  hungry  for  any  sort  of  good  tidings  was 
the  starved  little  pupil,  that  Timothy  "got  religion" 
then  and  there,  as  simply  and  naturally  as  a  child  takes 
its  mother's  milk.  He  was  probably  in  a  state  of  crass 
ignorance  regarding  the  Thirty-nine  Articles;  but  it 
was  the  "engrafted  word,"  of  which  the  Bible  speaks, 
that  had  blossomed  in  Timothy's  heart;  the  living  seed 
had  always  been  there,  waiting  for  some  beneficent 
fostering  influence ;  for  he  was  what  dear  Charles  Lamb 
would  have  called  a  natural  "  kingdom-of-heavenite." 
Thinking,  therefore,  of  Miss  Dora's  injunction  to  pray 
over  all  the  extraordinary  affairs  of  life  and  as  many 
of  the  ordinary  ones  as  possible,  he  hung  his  tattered 
straw  hat  on  the  bedpost,  and  knelt  beside  Gay's  crib 
with  this  whispered  prayer:  — 

"Our  Father  who  art  in  heaven,  please  help  me  to 
find  a  mother  for  Gay,  one  that  she  can  call  Mamma, 
and  another  one  for  me,  if  there 's  enough,  but  not  unless. 

48 


** 


SHE  WAS  SAKE  ON  HER  BELOVED  TIMOTHY'S  SHOULDER 


3E8BE: 


iS 


TWO   LITTLE  RUNAWAYS 

Please  excuse  me  for  taking  away  the  clothes-basket, 
which  does  not  exactly  belong  to  us,  but  if  I  do  not  take 
it,  dear  heavenly  Father,  how  will  I  get  Gay  to  the  rail- 
road ?  And  if  I  don't  take  the  Japanese  umbrella  she 
will  get  freckled,  and  nobody  will  adopt  her  on  account 
of  her  red  hair.  No  more  at  present,  as  I  am  in  a  great 
hurry.    Amen." 

He  put  on  his  hat,  stooped  over  the  sleeping  baby, 
and  took  her  in  his  faithful  arms,  — arms  that  had 
never  failed  her  yet.  She  half  opened  her  eyes,  and  see- 
ing that  she  was  safe  on  her  beloved  Timothy's  shoul- 
der, clasped  her  dimpled  arms  tight  about  his  neck, 
and  with  a  long  sigh  drifted  off  again  into  the  land  of 
dreams.  Bending  beneath  her  weight,  he  stepped  for 
the  last  time  across  the  threshold,  not  even  daring  to 
close  the  door  behind  him. 

Up  the  alley  and  round  the  corner  he  sped  as  fast 
as  his  trembling  legs  could  carry  him.  Just  as  he  was 
within  sight  of  the  goal  of  his  ambition,  that  is,  the 
chariot  aforesaid,  he  fancied  he  heard  the  sound  of 
hurrying  feet  behind  him.  To  his  fevered  imagination 
the  tread  was  like  that  of  an  avenging  army  on  the  track 
of  the  foe.  He  did  not  dare  to  look  behind.  On!  for 
the  clothes-basket  and  liberty!  He  would  relinquish 
the  Japanese  umbrella,  the  cookies,  the  comb,  and  the 
apron,  — all  the  booty,  in  fact,  — as  an  inducement  for 
the  enemy  to  retreat,  but  he  would  never  give  up  the 
prisoner. 

On  the  feet  hurried,  faster  and  faster.  He  stooped 
to  put  Gay  in  the  basket,  and  turned  in  despair  to 
meet  his  pursuers,  when  a  little  grimy,  rough-coated, 

49 


MODERN  STORIES 

lop-eared,  split-tailed  thing,  like  an  animated  rag-bag, 
leaped  upon  his  knees,  whimpering  with  joy,  and  im- 
ploring, with  every  grace  that  his  simple  doggish  heart 
could  suggest,  to  be  one  of  the  eloping  party. 

Rags  had  followed  them! 

Timothy  was  so  glad  to  find  it  no  worse  that  he 
wasted  a  moment  in  embracing  the  dog,  whose  delirious 
joy  at  the  prospect  of  this  probably  dinnerless  and  sup- 
perless  expedition  was  ludicrously  exaggerated.  Then 
he  took  up  the  rope  and  trundled  the  chariot  gently 
down  a  side  street  leading  to  the  station. 

Everything  worked  to  a  charm.  They  met  only  an 
occasional  milk  (and  water)  man,  starting  on  his  ma- 
tutinal rounds,  for  it  was  now  after  four  o'clock,  and 
one  or  two  cavaliers  of  uncertain  gait,  just  returning  to 
their  homes,  several  hours  too  late  for  their  own  good; 
but  these  gentlemen  were  in  no  condition  of  mind  to  be 
overinterested,  and  the  little  fugitives  were  troubled 
with  no  questions  as  to  their  intentions. 

And  so  they  went  out  into  the  world  together,  these 
three:  Timothy  Jessup  (if  it  was  Jessup),  brave  little 
knight,  nameless  nobleman,  tracing  his  descent  back 
to  God,  the  Father  of  us  all,  and  bearing  the  Divine 
likeness  more  than  most  of  us;  the  little  Lady  Gay, 
—  somebody  —  nobody  —  anybody,  —  from  nobody 
knows  where,  — destination  equally  uncertain;  and 
Rags,  of  pedigree  most  doubtful,  scutcheon  quite  ob- 
scured by  blots,  but  a  perfect  gentleman,  true-hearted 
and  loyal  to  the  core,  —  in  fact,  an  angel  in  fur.  These 
three,  with  the  clothes-basket  as  personal  property  and 
the  Bank  of  England  as  security,  went  out  to  seek  their 

50 


TWO   LITTLE  RUNAWAYS 

fortune;  and,  unlike  Lot's  wife,  without  daring  to  look 
behind,  shook  the  dust  of  Minerva  Court  from  off  their 
feet  forever  and  forever. 

At  this  moment  a  large,  comfortable  white  house, 
that  had  been  heretofore  hidden  by  great  trees,  came 
into  view.  Timothy  drew  nearer  to  the  spotless  picket 
fence,  and  gazed  upon  the  beauties  of  the  side  yard  and 
the  front  garden,  — gazed  and  gazed,  and  fell  desper- 
ately in  love  at  first  sight. 

The  whole  thing  had  been  made  as  if  to  order;  that 
is  all  there  is  to  say  about  it.  There  was  an  orchard, 
and,  oh,  ecstasy!  what  hosts  of  green  apples!  There 
was  an  interesting  grindstone  under  one  tree,  and  a 
bright  blue  chair  and  stool  under  another;  a  thicket 
of  currant  and  gooseberry  bushes ;  and  a  flock  of  young 
turkeys  ambling  awkwardly  through  the  barn.  Tim- 
othy stepped  gently  along  in  the  thick  grass,  past  a 
pump  and  a  mossy  trough,  till  a  side  porch  came  into 
view,  with  a  woman  sitting  there  sewing  bright-colored 
rags.  A  row  of  shining  tin  pans  caught  the  sun's  rays, 
and  threw  them  back  in  a  thousand  glittering  prisms 
of  light;  the  grasshoppers  and  crickets  chirped  sleepily 
in  the  warm  grass,  and  a  score  of  tiny  yellow  butterflies 
hovered  over  a  group  of  odorous  hollyhocks. 

Suddenly  the  person  on  the  porch  broke  into  this 
cheerful  song,  which  she  pitched  in  so  high  a  key  and 
gave  with  such  emphasis  that  the  crickets  and  grass- 
hoppers retired  by  mutual  consent  from  any  further 
competition,  and  the  butterflies  suspended  operations 
for  several  seconds:  — 

51 


MODERN  STORIES 

"I'll  chase  the  antelope  over  the  plain, 
The  tiger's  cub  I'll  bind  with  a  chain, 
And  the  wild  gazelle  with  its  silv'ry  feet 
I'll  bring  to  thee  for  a  playmate  sweet." 

Timothy  listened  intently  for  some  moments,  but 
could  not  understand  the  words,  unless  the  lady  hap- 
pened to  be  in  the  menagerie  business,  which  he  thought 
unlikely,  but  delightful  should  it  prove  true. 

His  eye  then  fell  on  a  little  marble  slab  under  a  tree 
in  a  shady  corner  of  the  orchard. 

"That's  a  country  doorplate,"  he  thought;  "yes, 
it's  got  the  lady's  name,  'Martha  Cummins,'  printed 
on  it.    Now  I'll  know  what  to  call  her." 

He  crept  softly  on  to  the  front  side  of  the  house. 
There  were  flower-beds,  a  lovable  white  cat  snoozing 
on  the  doorsteps,  and  —  a  lady  sitting  at  the  open  win- 
dow knitting! 

At  this  vision  Timothy's  heart  beat  so  hard  against 
his  dusty  jacket  that  he  could  only  stagger  back  to  the 
basket,  where  Rags  and  Lady  Gay  were  snuggled  to- 
gether, fast  asleep.  He  anxiously  scanned  Gay's  face; 
moistened  his  rag  of  a  handkerchief  at  the  only  avail- 
able source  of  supply;  scrubbed  an  atrocious  dirt  spot 
from  the  tip  of  her  spirited  nose;  and  then,  dragging 
the  basket  along  the  path  leading  to  the  front  gate,  he 
opened  it  and  went  in,  mounted  the  steps,  plied  the 
brass  knocker,  and  waited  in  childlike  faith  for  a  sum- 
mons to  enter  and  make  himself  at  home. 

Meanwhile,  Miss  Avilda  Cummins  had  left  her  win- 
dow and  gone  into  the  next  room  for  a  skein  of  yarn. 
She  answered  the  knock,  however;  and,  opening  the 

52 


TWO  LITTLE  RUNAWAYS 

door,  stood  rooted  to  the  threshold  in  speechless  aston- 
ishment, very  much  as  if  she  had  seen  the  shades  of  her 
ancestors  drawn  up  in  line  in  the  dooryard. 

Off  went  Timothy's  hat.  He  had  n't  seen  the  lady's 
face  very  clearly  when  she  was  knitting  at  the  window, 
or  he  would  never  have  dared  to  knock;  but  it  was  too 
late  to  retreat.  Looking  straight  into  her  cold  eyes  with 
his  own  shining  gray  ones,  he  said,  bravely,  but  with  a 
trembling  voice,  "  Do  you  need  any  babies  here,  if  you 
please?"  (Need  any  babies!  What  an  inappropriate, 
nonsensical  expression,  to  be  sure;  as  if  a  household 
baby  were  something  exquisitely  indispensable,  like  the 
breath  of  life,  for  instance!) 

No  answer.  Miss  Vilda  was  trying  to  assume  com- 
mand of  her  scattered  faculties  and  find  some  clue  to 
the  situation.  Timothy  concluded  that  she  was  not,  after 
all,  the  lady  of  the  house;  and,  remembering  the  mar- 
ble doorplate  in  the  orchard,  tried  again.  "  Does  Miss 
Martha  Cummins  live  here,  if  you  please  ? "  (Oh, 
Timothy!  what  induced  you,  in  this  crucial  moment 
of  your  life,  to  touch  upon  that  sorest  spot  in  Miss  Vilda's 
memory  ?) 

"What  do  you  want?"  she  faltered. 

"I  want  to  get  somebody  to  adopt  my  baby,"  he  said; 
"  if  you  have  n't  got  any  of  your  own,  you  could  n't 
find  one  half  as  dear  and  as  pretty  as  she  is;  and  you 
need  n't  have  me  too,  you  know,  unless  you  should 
need  me  to  help  take  care  of  her." 

"You're  very  kind,"  Miss  Avilda  answered  sarcas- 
tically, preparing  to  shut  the  door  upon  the  strange 
child;  "but  I  don't  think  I  care  to  adopt  any  babies 

53 


MODERN  STORIES 

this  afternoon,  thank  you.  You  'd  better  run  right  back 
home  to  your  mother,  if  you  've  got  one,  and  know  where 
't  is,  anyhow." 

"  But  I  —  I  have  n't ! "  cried  poor  Timothy,  with  a 
sudden  and  unpremeditated  burst  of  tears  at  the  failure 
of  his  hopes;  for  he  was  half  child  as  well  as  half  hero. 
At  this  juncture  Gay  opened  her  eyes,  and  burst  into 
a  wild  howl  at  the  unwonted  sight  of  Timothy's  grief; 
and  Rags,  who  was  full  of  exquisite  sensibility,  and 
quite  ready  to  weep  with  those  who  wept,  lifted  up  his 
woolly  head  and  added  his  piteous  wails  to  the  con- 
cert.   It  was  a  tableau  vivant. 

"Samanthy  Ann!"  called  Miss  Vilda,  excitedly; 
"Samanthy  Ann!  Come  right  here  and  tell  me  what 
to  do!" 

The  person  thus  adjured  flew  in  from  the  porch,  leav- 
ing a  serpentine  trail  of  red,  yellow,  and  blue  rags  in  her 
wake.  "Land  o'  liberty!"  she  exclaimed,  as  she  sur- 
veyed the  group.  "  Where  'd  they  come  from,  and  what 
air  they  tryin'  to  act  out  ?  " 

"This  boy's  a  baby  agent,  as  near  as  I  can  make  out; 
he  wants  I  should  adopt  this  red-headed  baby,  but  says 
I  ain't  obliged  to  take  him  too,  and  pretends  they 
have  n't  got  any  home.  I  told  him  I  wan't  adoptin' 
any  babies  just  now,  and  at  that  he  burst  out  cryin', 
and  the  other  two  followed  suit.  Now,  have  the  three 
of  'em  just  escaped  from  some  asylum,  or  are  they  too 
little  to  be  lunatics?" 

Timothy  dried  his  tears,  in  order  that  Gay  should  be 
comforted  and  appear  at  her  best,  and  said,  penitently, 
"  I  cried  before  I  thought,  because  Gay  has  n't  had 

54 


TWO  LITTLE  RUNAWAYS 

anything  but  cookies  since  last  night,  and  she'll  have 
no  place  to  sleep  unless  you'll  let  us  stay  here  just  till 
morning.  We  went  by  all  the  other  houses,  and  chose 
this  one  because  everything  was  so  beautiful." 

"  Nothin'  but  cookies  sence  —  Land  o'  liberty ! " 
ejaculated   Samantha  Ann,  starting  for  the  kitchen. 

"Come  back  here,  Samanthy!  Don't  you  leave  me 
alone  with  'em,  and  don't  let's  have  all  the  neighbors 
runnin'  in;  you  take  'em  into  the  kitchen  and  give 
'em  somethin'  to  eat,  and  we  '11  see  about  the  rest  after- 
wards." 

Gay  kindled  at  the  first  casual  mention  of  food ;  and, 
trying  to  clamber  out  of  the  basket,  fell  over  the  edge, 
thumping  her  head  smartly  on  the  stone  steps.  Miss 
Vilda  covered  her  face  with  her  hands,  and  waited  shud- 
deringly  for  another  yell,  as  the  child's  carnation  stock- 
ings and  terra-cotta  head  mingled  wildly  in  the  air. 
But  Lady  Gay  disentangled  herself,  and  laughed  the 
merriest  burst  of  laughter  that  ever  woke  the  echoes. 
That  was  a  joke;  her  life  was  full  of  them,  served  fresh 
every  day;  for  no  sort  of  adversity  could  long  have 
power  over  such  a  nature  as  hers.  "  Come,  get  supper," 
she  cooed,  putting  her  hand  in  Samantha's;  adding  that 
the  "nasty  lady  need  n't  come,"  a  remark  that  happily 
escaped  detection,  as  it  was  rendered  in  very  unintelli- 
gible "early  English." 

Miss  Avilda  tottered  into  the  darkened  sitting-room 
and  sank  onto  a  black  hair-cloth  sofa,  while  Samantha 
ushered  the  wanderers  into  the  sunny  kitchen,  mutter- 
ing to  herself,  "  Wall,  I  vow !  travelin'  over  the  country 
all  alone,  'n'  not  knee-high  to  a  toad !   They  're  sendin* 

55 


MODERN  STORIES 

out  awful  young  tramps  this  season,  but  they  shan't  go 
away  hungry,  if  I  know  it." 

Accordingly,  she  set  out  a  plentiful  supply  of  bread 
and  butter,  gingerbread,  pie,  and  milk,  put  a  tin  plate 
of  cold  hash  in  the  shed  for  Rags,  and  swept  him  out 
to  it  with  a  corn  broom;  and,  telling  the  children  com- 
fortably to  cram  their  "everlastin'  little  bread-baskets 
full,"  returned  to  the  sitting-room. 


HARE  AND  HOUNDS  AT  RUGBY 

By  Thomas  Hughes 

IN  all  the  games,  too,  Tom  joined  with  all  his  heart, 
and  soon  became  well  versed  in  all  the  mysteries 
of  football,  by  continued  practice  at  the  school-house 
little-side,  which  played  daily. 

The  only  incident  worth  recording  here,  however, 
was  the  first  run  at  hare-and-hounds.  On  the  last  Tues- 
day but  one  of  the  half-year,  he  was  passing  through 
the  hall  after  dinner,  when  he  was  hailed  with  shouts 
from  Tadpole  and  several  other  fags  seated  at  one  of 
the  long  tables,  the  chorus  of  which  was,  "  Come  and 
help  us  tear  up  scent." 

Tom  approached  the  table  in  obedience  to  the  mys- 
terious summons,  always  ready  to  help,  and  found 
the  party  engaged  in  tearing  up  old  newspapers,  copy- 
books, and  magazines  into  small  pieces,  with  which 
they  were  filling  four  large  canvas  bags. 

"  It 's  the  turn  of  our  house  to  find  scent  for  big-side 
hare-and-hounds,"  exclaimed  Tadpole;  "tear  away, 
there's  no  time  to  lose  before  calling-over." 

"I  think  it's  a  great  shame,"  said  another  small  boy, 
"to  have  such  a  hard  run  for  the  last  day." 

"Which  run  is  it?"  said  Tadpole. 

"Oh,  the  Bar  by  run,  I  hear,"  answered  the  other, 
—  "nine  miles  at  least,  and  hard  ground;  no  chance 

57 


MODERN  STORIES 

of  getting  in  at  the  finish  unless  you're  a  first-rate 
scud." 

"Well,  I'm  going  to  have  a  try,"  said  Tadpole;  "it's 
the  last  run  of  the  half;  and  if  a  fellow  gets  in  at  the  end, 
big-side  stands  ale  and  bread  and  cheese,  and  a  bowl 
of  punch;  and  the  Cock's  such  a  famous  place  for  ale." 

"I  should  like  to  try,  too,"  said  Tom. 

"  Well,  then,  leave  your  waistcoat  behind,  and  listen 
at  the  door,  after  calling-over,  and  you'll  hear  where 
the  meet  is." 

After  calling-over,  sure  enough,  there  were  two  boys 
at  the  door  calling  out,"  Big-side  hare-and-hounds  meet 
at  White  Hall;"  and  Tom,  having  girded  himself  with 
leather  strap,  and  left  all  superfluous  clothing  behind, 
set  off  for  White  Hall,  an  old  gable-ended  house  some 
quarter  of  a  mile  from  the  town,  with  East,  whom  he 
had  persuaded  to  join,  notwithstanding  his  prophecy 
that  they  could  never  get  in,  as  it  was  the  hardest  run 
of  the  year. 

At  the  meet  they  found  some  forty  or  fifty  boys;  and 
Tom  felt  sure,  from  having  seen  many  of  them  run  at 
football,  that  he  and  East  were  more  likely  to  get  in 
than  they. 

After  a  few  minutes'  waiting,  two  well-known  run- 
ners, chosen  for  the  hares,  buckled  on  the  four  bags 
filled  with  scent,  compared  their  watches  with  those 
of  young  Brooke  and  Thorne,  and  started  off  at  a 
long  slinging  trot  across  the  fields  in  the  direction  of 
Barby. 

Then  the  hounds  clustered  round  Thorne,  who  ex- 
plained shortly,  "They're  to  have  six  minutes'  law, 

58 


HARE  AND  HOUNDS  AT  RUGBY 

We  run  into  the  Cock,  and  every  one  who  comes  in 
within  a  quarter  of  an  hour  of  the  hares  '11  be  counted,  if 
he  has  been  round  Barby  church."  Then  came  a  min- 
ute's pause  or  so,  and  then  the  watches  are  pocketed, 
and  the  pack  is  led  through  the  gateway  into  the  field 
which  the  hares  had  first  crossed.  Here  they  break  into 
a  trot,  scattering  over  the  field  to  find  the  first  traces  of 
the  scent  which  the  hares  throw  out  as  they  go  along. 
The  old  hounds  make  straight  for  the  likely  points,  and 
in  a  minute  a  cry  of  "  Forward "  comes  from  one  of 
them,  and  the  whole  pack,  quickening  their  pace,  make 
for  the  spot,  while  the  boy  who  hit  the  scent  first,  and 
the  two  or  three  nearest  to  him,  are  over  the  first  fence, 
and  making  play  along  the  hedgerow  in  the  long  grass- 
field  beyond.  The  rest  of  the  pack  rush  at  the  gap  al- 
ready made,  and  scramble  through,  jostling  one  another. 
"Forward"  again,  before  they  are  half  through;  the 
pace  quickens  into  a  sharp  run,  the  tail  hounds  all  strain- 
ing to  get  up  with  the  lucky  leaders.  They  are  gallant 
hares,  and  the  scent  lies  thick  right  across  another 
meadow  and  into  a  ploughed  field,  where  the  pace  be- 
gins to  tell;  then  over  a  good  wattle  with  a  ditch  on  the 
other  side,  and  down  a  large  pasture  studded  with  old 
thorns,  which  slopes  down  to  the  first  brook;  the  great 
Leicestershire  sheep  charge  away  across  the  field  as 
the  pack  come  racing  down  the  slope.  The  brook  is  a 
small  one,  and  the  scent  lies  right  ahead  up  the  oppo- 
site slope,  and  as  thick  as  ever;  not  a  turn  or  a  check  to 
favor  the  tail  hounds,  who  strain  on,  now  trailing  in  a 
long  line,  many  a  youngster  beginning  to  drag  his  legs 
heavily,  and  feel  his  heart  beat  like  a  hammer,  and  the 

59 


MODERN  STORIES 

bad  plucked  ones  thinking  that  after  all  it  is  n't  worth 
while  to  keep  it  up. 

Tom,  East,  and  Tadpole  had  a  good  start,  and  are 
well  up  for  such  young  hands,  and  after  rising  the  slope 
and  crossing  the  next  field,  find  themselves  up  with  the 
leading  hounds,  who  have  overrun  the  scent  and  are 
trying  back;  they  have  come  a  mile  and  a  half  in  about 
eleven  minutes,  a  pace  which  shows  that  it  is  the  last 
day.  About  twenty-five  of  the  original  starters  only 
show  here,  the  rest  having  already  given  in ;  the  leaders 
are  busy  making  casts  into  the  fields  on  the  left  and 
right,  and  the  others  get  their  second  winds. 

Then  comes  the  cry  of  "  Forward  "  again,  from  young 
Brooke,  from  the  extreme  left,  and  the  pack  settles 
down  to  work  again  steadily  and  doggedly,  the  whole 
keeping  pretty  well  together.  The  scent,  though  still 
good,  is  not  so  thick;  there  is  no  need  of  that,  for  in 
this  part  of  the  run  every  one  knows  the  line  which  must 
be  taken,  and  so  there  are  no  casts  to  be  made,  but  good 
downright  running  and  fencing  to  be  done.  All  who 
are  now  up  mean  coming  in,  and  they  come  to  the  foot 
of  Barby  Hill  without  losing  more  than  two  or  three 
more  of  the  pack.  This  last  straight  two  miles  and  a 
half  is  always  a  vantage  ground  for  the  hounds,  and 
the  hares  know  it  well;  they  are  generally  viewed  on 
the  side  of  Barby  Hill,  and  all  eyes  are  on  the  lookout 
for  them  to-day.  But  not  a  sign  of  them  appears,  so 
now  will  be  the  hard  work  for  the  hounds,  and  there  is 
nothing  for  it  but  to  cast  about  for  the  scent,  for  it  is 
now  the  hares'  turn,  and  they  may  baffle  the  pack  dread- 
fully in  the  next  two  miles. 

60 


HARE  AND  HOUNDS  AT  RUGBY 

111  fares  it  now  with  our  youngsters  that  they  are 
school-house  boys,  and  so  follow  young  Brooke;  for 
he  takes  the  wide  casts  round  to  the  left,  conscious  of 
his  own  powers,  and  loving  the  hard  work.  For  if  you 
would  consider  for  a  moment,  you  small  boys,  you 
would  remember  that  the  Cock,  where  the  run  ends 
and  the  good  ale  will  be  going,  lies  far  out  to  the  right 
on  the  Dunchurch  road,  so  that  every  cast  you  take  to 
the  left  is  so  much  extra  work.  And  at  this  stage  of  the 
run,  when  the  evening  is  closing  in  already,  no  one  re- 
marks whether  you  run  a  little  cunning  or  not,  so  you 
should  stick  to  those  crafty  hounds  who  keep  edging 
away  to  the  right,  and  not  follow  a  prodigal  like  young 
Brooke,  whose  legs  are  twice  as  long  as  yours  and  of 
cast-iron,  wholly  indifferent  to  two  or  three  miles  more 
or  less.  However,  they  struggle  after  him,  sobbing  and 
plunging  along,  Tom  and  East  pretty  close,  and  Tad- 
pole, whose  big  head  begins  to  pull  him  down,  some 
thirty  yards  behind. 

Now  comes  a  brook,  with  stiff  clay  banks,  from  which 
they  can  hardly  drag  their  legs;  and  they  hear  faint 
cries  for  help  from  the  wretched  Tadpole,  who  has  fairly 
stuck  fast.  But  they  have  too  little  run  left  in  themselves 
to  pull  up  for  their  own  brothers.  Three  fields  more, 
and  another  check,  and  then  "  Forward  "  called  away  to 
the  extreme  right. 

The  two  boys'  souls  die  within  them;  they  can  never 
do  it.  Young  Brooke  thinks  so,  too,  and  says  kindly, 
"  You  '11  cross  a  lane  after  next  field,  keep  down  it,  and 
you'll  hit  the  Dunchurch  road  below  the  Cock,"  and 
then  steams  away  for  the  run  in,  in  which  he 's  sure  to 

61 


MODERN  STORIES 

be  first,  as  if  he  were  just  starting.  They  struggle  on 
across  the  next  field,  the  "  Forwards  "  getting  fainter  and 
fainter,  and  then  ceasing.  The  whole  hunt  is  out  of  ear- 
shot, and  all  hope  of  coming  in  is  over. 

"  Hang  it  all ! "  broke  out  East,  as  soon  as  he  had  got 
wind  enough,  pulling  off  his  hat  and  mopping  at  his 
face,  all  spattered  with  dirt  and  lined  with  sweat,  from 
which  went  up  a  thick  steam  into  the  still,  cold  air.  "  I 
told  you  how  it  would  be.  What  a  thick  I  was  to  come! 
Here  we  are  dead  beat,  and  yet  I  know  we're  close  to 
the  run  in,  if  we  knew  the  country." 

"Well,"  said  Tom,  mopping  away,  and  gulping  down 
his  disappointment,  "it  can't  be  helped.  We  did  our 
best,  anyhow.  Had  n't  we  better  find  this  lane,  and  go 
down  it  as  young  Brooke  told  us  ?  " 

"I  suppose  so  — nothing  else  for  it,"  grunted  East. 
"If  ever  I  go  out  last  day  again,"  growl  — growl  — 
growl. 

So  they  tried  back  slowly  and  sorrowfully,  and  found 
the  lane,  and  went  limping  down  it,  plashing  in  the  cold, 
puddly  ruts,  and  beginning  to  feel  how  the  run  had 
taken  it  out  of  them.  The  evening  closed  in  fast,  and 
clouded  over,  dark,  cold,  and  dreary. 

"I  say,  it  must  be  locking-up,  I  should  think,"  re- 
marked East,  breaking  the  silence;  "it's  so  dark." 

"What  if  we're  late?"  said  Tom. 

"No  tea,  and  sent  up  to  the  Doctor,"  answered  East. 

The  thought  did  n't  add  to  their  cheerfulness.  Pre- 
sently a  faint  halloo  was  heard  from  an  adjoining  field. 
They  answered  it  and  stopped,  hoping  for  some  com- 
petent rustic  to  guide  them,  when  over  a  gate  some 

62 


HARE  AND  HOUNDS  AT  RUGBY 

twenty  yards  ahead  crawled  the  wretched  Tadpole,  in 
a  state  of  collapse ;  he  had  lost  a  shoe  in  the  brook,  and 
been  groping  after  it  up  to  his  elbows  on  the  stiff,  wet 
clay,  and  a  more  miserable  creature  in  the  shape  of  boy 
seldom  has  been  seen. 

The  sight  of  him,  notwithstanding,  cheered  them,  for 
he  was  some  degrees  more  wretched  than  they.  They 
also  cheered  him,  as  he  was  now  no  longer  under  the 
dread  of  passing  his  night  alone  in  the  fields.  And  so 
in  better  heart,  the  three  plashed  painfully  down  the 
never-ending  lane.  At  last  it  widened,  just  as  utter  dark- 
ness set  in,  and  they  came  out  onto  a  turnpike  road, 
and  there  paused  bewildered,  for  they  had  lost  all  bear- 
ings, and  knew  not  whether  to  turn  to  the  right  or  left. 

Luckily  for  them  they  had  not  to  decide,  for  lum- 
bering along  the  road,  with  one  lamp  lighted,  and  two 
spavined  horses  in  the  shafts,  came  a  heavy  coach,  which 
after  a  moment's  suspense  they  recognized  as  the  Ox- 
ford coach,  the  redoubtable  Pig  and  Whistle. 

It  lumbered  slowly  up,  and  the  boys,  mustering  their 
last  run,  caught  it  as  it  passed,  and  began  scrambling 
up  behind,  in  which  exploit  East  missed  his  footing 
and  fell  flat  on  his  nose  along  the  road.  Then  the  others 
hailed  the  old  scarecrow  of  a  coachman,  who  pulled  up 
and  agreed  to  take  them  in  for  a  shilling;  so  there  they 
sat  on  the  back  seat,  drubbing  with  their  heels,  and  their 
teeth  chattering  with  cold,  and  jogged  into  Rugby  some 
forty  minutes  after  locking-up. 

Five  minutes  afterwards,  three  small,  limping,  shiv- 
ering figures  steal  along  through  the  Doctor's  garden, 
and  into  the  house  by  the  servants'  entrance  (all  the 

63 


MODERN  STORIES 

other  gates  have  been  closed  long  since),  where  the  first 
thing  they  light  upon  in  the  passage  is  old  Thomas, 
ambling  along,  candle  in  one  hand  and  keys  in  the 
other. 

He  stops  and  examines  their  condition  with  a  grim 
smile.  "Ah!  East,  Hall,  and  Brown,  late  for  locking- 
up.    Must  go  to  the  Doctor's  study  at  once." 

"  Well,  but,  Thomas,  may  n't  we  go  and  wash  first  ? 
You  can  put  down  the  time,  you  know." 

"Doctor's  study  d'rectly  you  come  in — that's  the 
orders,"  replied  old  Thomas,  motioning  towards  the 
stairs  at  the  end  of  the  passage  which  led  up  into  the 
Doctor's  house;  and  the  boys  turned  ruefully  down 
it,  not  cheered  by  the  old  verger's  muttered  remark, 
"  What  a  pickle  they  boys  be  in ! "  Thomas  referred  to 
their  faces  and  habiliments,  but  they  construed  it  as 
indicating  the  Doctor's  state  of  mind.  Upon  the  short 
flight  of  stairs  they  paused  to  hold  counsel. 

"Who'll  go  in  first?"  inquires  Tadpole. 

"You  — you're  the  senior,"  answered  East. 

"Catch  me — look  at  the  state  I'm  in!"  rejoined 
Hall,  showing  the  arms  of  his  jacket.  "I  must  get 
behind  you  two." 

"Well,  but  look  at  me,"  said  East,  indicating  the 
mass  of  clay  behind  which  he  was  standing;  "I'm 
worse  than  you,  two  to  one;  you  might  grow  cabbages 
on  my  trousers." 

"  That 's  all  down  below,  and  you  can  keep  your  legs 
behind  the  sofa,"  said  Hall. 

"  Here,  Brown,  you  're  the  show-figure  —  you  must 
lead." 

64 


HARE  AND  HOUNDS  AT  RUGBY 

"But  my  face  is  all  muddy,"  argued  Tom. 

"  Oh,  we  're  all  in  one  boat  for  that  matter;  but  come 
on,  we're  only  making  it  worse,  dawdling  here." 

"Well,  just  give  us  a  brush,  then,"  said  Tom;  and 
they  began  trying  to  rub  off  the  superfluous  dirt  from 
each  other's  jackets,  but  it  was  not  dry  enough,  and 
the  rubbing  made  it  worse;  so  in  despair  they  pushed 
through  the  swing  door  at  the  head  of  the  stairs,  and 
found  themselves  in  the  Doctor's  hall. 

"That's  the  library  door,"  said  East,  in  a  whisper, 
pushing  Tom  forwards.  The  sound  of  merry  voices 
and  laughter  came  from  within,  and  his  first  hesitating 
knock  was  unanswered.  But  at  the  second,  the  Doctor's 
voice  said,  "  Come  in; "  and  Tom  turned  the  handle,  and 
he,  with  the  others  behind  him,  sidled  into  the  room. 

The  Doctor  looked  up  from  his  task;  he  was  work- 
ing away  with  a  great  chisel  at  the  bottom  of  a  boy's 
sailing-boat,  the  lines  of  which  he  was  no  doubt  fash- 
ioning on  the  model  of  one  of  Nicias'  galleys.  Round 
him  stood  three  or  four  children;  the  candles  burnt 
brightly  on  a  large  table  at  the  further  end,  covered 
with  books  and  papers,  and  a  great  fire  threw  a  ruddy 
glow  over  the  rest  of  the  room.  All  looked  so  kindly, 
and  homely,  and  comfortable  that  the  boys  took  heart 
in  a  moment,  and  Tom  advanced  from  behind  the  shel- 
ter of  the  great  sofa.  The  Doctor  nodded  to  the  chil- 
dren, who  went  out,  casting  curious  and  amused  glances 
at  the  three  young  scarecrows. 

"Well,  my  little  fellows,"  began  the  Doctor,  draw- 
ing himself  up  with  his  back  to  the  fire,  the  chisel  in 
one  hand,  and  his  coat-tails  in  the  other,  and  his  eyes 

65 


MODERN  STORIES 

twinkling  as  he  looked  them  over,  "what  makes  you 
so  late?" 

"  Please,  sir,  we  've  been  out  big-side  hare-and-hounds> 
and  lost  our  way." 

"  Hah !  you  could  n't  keep  up,  I  suppose  ?  " 

"Well,  sir,"  said  East,  stepping  out,  and  not  liking 
that  the  Doctor  should  think  lightly  of  his  running 
powers,  "we  got  round  Barby  all  right,  but  then"  — 

"  Why,  what  a  state  you  're  in,  my  boy ! "  interrupted 
the  Doctor,  as  the  pititul  condition  of  East's  garments 
was  fully  revealed  to  him. 

"That's  the  fall  I  got,  sir,  in  the  road,"  said  East, 
looking  down  at  himself;  "the  Old  Pig  came  by"  — 

"The  what?"  said  the  Doctor. 

"The  Oxford  coach,  sir,"  explained  Hall. 

"Hah!  yes,  the  Regulator,"  said  the  Doctor. 

"And  I  tumbled  on  my  face,  trying  to  get  up  be' 
hind,"  went  on  East. 

"You're  not  hurt,  I  hope?"  said  the  Doctor. 

"Oh,  no,  sir!" 

"Well,  now,  run  upstairs,  all  three  of  you,  and  get 
clean  things  on,  and  then  tell  the  housekeeper  to  give 
you  some  tea.  You  're  too  young  to  try  such  long  runs. 
Let  Warner  know  I  've  seen  you.    Good-night." 

"  Good-night,  sir."  And  away  scuttled  the  three  boys 
in  high  glee. 

"What  a  brick,  not  to  give  us  even  twenty  lines 
to  learn!"  said  Tadpole,  as  they  reached  their  bed- 
room; and  in  half  an  hour  afterwards  they  were  sitting 
by  the  fire  in  the  housekeeper's  room  at  a  sumptuous 
tea,  with  cold  meat,  "  twice  as  good  a  grub  as  we  should 

66 


HARE  AND  HOUNDS  AT  RUGBY 

have  got  in  the  hall,"  as  Tadpole  remarked  with  a  grin, 
his  mouth  full  of  buttered  toast.  All  their  grievances 
were  forgotten,  and  they  were  resolving  to  go  out  the 
first  big-side  next  half,  and  thinking  hare-and-hounds 
the  most  delightful  of  games. 


THE   PRINCE'S  VISIT 

By  Horace  E.  Scudder 

IT  was  a  holiday  in  the  city,  for  the  Prince  was  to 
arrive.  As  soon  as  the  cannon  should  sound,  the 
people  might  know  that  the  Prince  had  landed  from 
the  steamer;  and  when  they  should  hear  the  bells  ring, 
that  was  much  the  same  as  being  told  that  the  Mayor 
and  Aldermen  and  City  Councilors  had  welcomed  the 
Prince  by  making  speeches,  and  shaking  hands,  and 
bowing,  and  drinking  wine;  and  that  now  the  Prince, 
dressed  in  splendid  clothes,  and  wearing  a  feather  in 
his  cap,  was  actually  on  his  way  up  the  main  street  of 
the  city,  seated  in  a  carriage  drawn  by  four  coal-black 
horses,  preceded  by  soldiers  and  music,  and  followed  by 
soldiers,  citizens  in  carriages,  and  people  on  foot.  Now 
it  was  the  first  time  that  a  Prince  had  ever  visited  the 
city,  and  it  might  be  the  only  chance  that  the  people 
ever  would  get  to  see  a  real  son  of  a  king;  and  so  it 
was  universally  agreed  to  have  a  holiday,  and  long  be- 
fore the  bells  rang  or  even  the  cannon  sounded,  the 
people  were  flocking  into  the  main  street,  well  dressed, 
as  indeed  they  ought  to  be,  when  they  were  to  be  seen 
by  a  Prince. 

It  was  holiday  in  the  stores  and  in  the  workshops, 
although  the  holiday  did  not  begin  at  the  same  hour 
everywhere.    In  the  great  laundry  it  was  to  commence 

68 


THE  PRINCE'S  VISIT 

when  the  cannon  sounded;  and  "weak  Job,"  as  his 
comrades  called  him,  who  did  nothing  all  day  long  but 
turn  the  crank  that  worked  a  great  washing-machine, 
and  which  was  quite  as  much,  they  said,  as  he  had  wits 
to  do,  listened  eagerly  for  the  sound  of  the  cannon ;  and 
when  he  heard  it,  he  dropped  the  crank,  and  getting  a 
nod  from  the  head  man,  shuffled  out  of  the  building 
and  made  his  way  home. 

Since  he  had  heard  of  the  Prince's  coming,  Job  had 
thought  and  dreamed  of  nothing  else;  and  when  he 
found  that  they  were  to  have  a  holiday  on  his  arrival, 
he  was  almost  beside  himself.  He  bought  a  picture  of 
the  Prince,  and  pinned  it  up  on  the  wall  over  his  bed; 
and  when  he  came  home  at  night,  tired  and  hungry, 
he  would  sit  down  by  his  mother,  who  mended  rents 
in  the  clothes  brought  to  the  laundry,  and  talk  about 
the  Prince  until  he  could  not  keep  his  eyes  open  longer; 
then  his  mother  would  kiss  him  and  send  him  to  bed, 
where  he  knelt  down  and  prayed  the  Lord  to  keep  the 
Prince,  and  then  slept  and  dreamed  of  him,  dressing 
him  in  all  the  gorgeous  colors  that  his  poor  imagina- 
tion could  devise,  while  his  mother  worked  late  in  her 
solitary  room,  thinking  of  her  only  boy;  and  when  she 
knelt  down  at  night,  she  prayed  the  Lord  to  keep  him, 
and  then  slept,  dreaming  also,  but  with  various  fan- 
cies; for  sometimes  she  seemed  to  see  Job  like  his  dead 
father,  — strong  and  handsome  and  brave  and  quick- 
witted, —  and  now  she  would  see  him  playing  with 
the  children  or  shuffling  down  the  court  with  his  head 
leaning  on  his  shoulder. 

To-day  he  hurried  so  fast  that  he  was  panting  for 

69 


MODERN  STORIES 

want  of  breath  when  he  reached  the  shed-like  house 
where  they  lived.  His  mother  was  watching  for  him, 
and  he  came  in  nodding  his  head  and  rubbing  his  warm 
face. 

"The  cannon  has  gone  off,  mother!"  said  he,  in 
great  excitement.    "The  Prince  has  come!" 

"Everything  is  ready,  Job,"  said  his  mother.  "You 
will  find  all  your  things  in  a  row  on  the  bed; "  and  Job 
tumbled  into  his  room  to  dress  himself  for  the  holiday. 
Everything  was  there  as  his  mother  had  said;  all  the 
old  things  renewed,  and  all  the  new  things  pieced  to- 
gether that  she  had  worked  on  so  long,  and  every  stitch 
of  which  Job  had  overlooked  and  almost  directed.  If 
there  had  but  been  time  to  spare,  how  Job  would  have 
liked  to  turn  round  and  round  before  his  scrap  of 
looking-glass;  but  there  was  no  time  to  spare,  and  so 
in  a  very  few  minutes  he  was  out  again,  and  showing 
himself  to  his  mother. 

"  Is  n't  it  splendid ! "  said  he,  surveying  himself  from 
top  to  toe,  and  looking  with  special  admiration  on  a 
white  satin  scarf  that  shone  round  his  throat  in  daz- 
zling contrast  to  the  dingy  coat,  and  which  had  in  it 
an  old  brooch  which  Job  treasured  as  the  apple  of 
his  eye.  Job's  mother,  too,  looked  at  them  both; 
and  though  she  smiled  and  did  not  speak,  it  was  only 
—  brave  woman !  —  because  she  was  choking,  as  she 
thought  how  the  satin  was  the  last  remnant  of  her 
wedding-dress,  and  the  brooch  the  last  trinket  left  of  all 
given  to  her  years  back. 

"If  you  would  only  have  let  me  wear  the  feather, 
mother!"  said  Job  sorrowfully,  in   regretful   remem- 

70 


THE  PRINCE'S  VISIT 

brance  of  one  he  had  long  hoarded,  and  which  he  had 
begged  hard  to  wear  in  his  hat. 

"You  look  splendidly,  Job,  and  don't  need  it,"  said 
she  cheerfully;  "and,  besides,  the  Prince  wears  one, 
and  what  would  he  think  if  he  saw  you  with  one,  too  ?  " 

"Sure  enough!"  said  Job,  who  had  not  thought  of 
that  before;  and  then  he  kissed  her  and  started  off, 
while  she  stood  at  the  door  looking  anxiously  after  him. 
"I  don't  believe,"  said  he  aloud,  as  he  went  up  the 
court,  "that  the  Prince  would  mind  my  wearing  a 
feather;  but  mother  didn't  want  me  to.  Hark!  there 
are  the  bells !  Yes,  he  has  started ! "  and  Job,  forgetting 
all  else,  pushed  eagerly  on.  It  was  a  long  way  from  the 
laundry  to  his  home,  and  it  was  a  long  way,  too,  from 
his  home  to  the  main  street;  and  so  Job  had  no  time 
to  spare  if  he  would  get  to  the  crowd  in  season  to  see 
the  grand  procession,  for  he  wanted  to  see  it  all,  — 
from  the  policemen  who  cleared  the  way  to  the  noisy 
omnibuses  and  carts  that  led  business  once  more  up 
the  holiday  street. 

On  he  shambled,  knocking  against  the  flagstones 
and  nearly  precipitating  himself  down  areas  and  un- 
guarded passage-ways.  He  was  now  in  a  cross  street, 
which  would  bring  him  before  long  into  the  main  street, 
and  he  even  thought  he  heard  the  distant  music  and 
the  cheers  of  the  crowd.  His  heart  beat  high,  and  his 
face  was  lighted  up  until  it  really  looked,  in  its  eager- 
ness, as  intelligent  as  that  of  other  people,  quicker- 
witted  than  poor  Job.  And  now  he  had  come  in  sight 
of  the  great  thoroughfare;  it  was  yet  a  good  way  off, 
but  he  could  see  the  black  swarms  of  people  that  lined 

71 


MODERN  STORIES 

its  edges.  The  street  he  was  in  was  quiet;  so  were  all 
the  cross  streets,  for  they  had  been  drained  of  life  to 
feed  the  great  artery  of  the  main  street.  There,  indeed, 
was  life!  upon  the  sidewalks,  packed  densely,  flowing 
out  in  eddies  into  the  alleys  and  cross  streets,  rising  tier 
above  tier  in  the  shop  fronts,  filling  all  the  upper  win- 
dows, and  fringing  even  the  roofs.  Flags  hung  from 
house  to  house,  and  sentences  of  welcome  were  written 
upon  strips  of  canvas.  And  if  one  at  this  moment,  when 
weak  Job  was  hurrying  up  the  cross  street,  could  have 
looked  from  some  housetop  down  the  main  street,  he 
would  have  seen  the  Prince's  pageant  coming  nearer 
and  nearer,  and  would  have  heard  the  growing  tumult 
of  brazen  music,  and  the  waves  of  cheers  that  broke 
along  the  lines. 

It  was  a  glimpse  of  this  sight,  and  a  note  of  this  sound, 
that  weak  Job  caught  in  the  still  street,  and  with  new 
ardor,  although  hot  and  dusty,  he  pressed  on,  almost 
weeping  at  thought  of  the  joy  he  was  to  have.  "The 
Prince  is  coming,"  he  said  aloud,  in  his  excitement. 
But  at  the  next  step,  Job,  recklessly  tumbling  along,  de- 
spite his  weak  and  troublesome  legs,  struck  something 
with  his  feet,  and  fell  forward  upon  the  walk.  He  could 
not  stop  to  see  what  it  was  that  so  suddenly  and  vexa- 
tiously  tripped  him  up,  and  was  just  moving  on  with 
a  limp,  when  he  heard  behind  him  a  groan  and  a  cry 
of  pain.  He  turned  and  saw  what  his  unlucky  feet  had 
stumbled  over.  A  poor  negro  boy,  without  home  or 
friends,  black  and  unsightly  enough,  and  clad  in  ragged 
clothing,  had  sat  down  upon  the  sidewalk,  leaning 
against  a  tree,  and  without  strength  enough  to  move? 

72 


THE  PRINCE'S  VISIT 

had  been  the  unwilling  stumbling-block  to  poor  Job's 
progress.  As  Job  turned,  the  poor  boy  looked  at  him 
beseechingly,  and  stretched  out  his  hands.  But  even 
that  was  an  exertion,  and  his  arms  dropped  by  his  side 
again.  His  lips  moved,  but  no  word  came  forth;  and 
his  eyes  even  closed,  as  if  he  could  not  longer  raise  the 
lids. 

"He  is  sick!"  said  Job,  and  looked  uneasily  about. 
There  was  no  one  near.  "Hilloa!"  cried  Job,  in  dis-' 
tress;  but  no  one  heard  except  the  black,  who  raised 
his  eyes  again  to  him,  and  essayed  to  move.  Job  started 
toward  him. 

"Hurrah!  hurrah!"  sounded  in  the  distant  street. 
The  roar  of  the  cheering  beat  against  the  houses,  and 
at  intervals  came  gusts  of  music.    Poor  Job  trembled. 

"The  Prince  is  coming!"  said  he;  and  he  turned 
as  if  to  run.  But  the  poor  black  would  not  away  from 
his  eyes.  "He  might  die  while  I  was  gone,"  said  he, 
and  he  turned  again  to  lift  him  up.  "He  is  sick!"  he 
said  again.    "I  will  take  him  home  to  mother." 

"  Hurrah !  hurrah !  there  he  is !  the  Prince !  the  Prince ! " 
And  the  dull  roar  of  the  cheering,  which  had  been  grow- 
ing louder  and  louder,  now  broke  into  sharp  ringing 
huzzas  as  the  grand  procession  passed  the  head  of  the 
cross  street.  In  the  carriage,  drawn  by  four  coal-black 
horses,  rode  the  Prince;  and  he  was  dressed  in  splendid 
clothes,  and  wore  a  feather  in  his  cap.  The  music  flowed 
forth  clearly  and  sweetly.  "God  save  the  king!"  it 
sang,  and  from  street  and  window  and  housetop  the 
people  shouted  and  waved  flags.    Hurrah!  hurrah! 

Weak  Job,  wiping  the  tears  from  his  eyes,  heard  the 

73 


MODERN  STORIES 

sound  from  afar,  but  he  saw  no  sight  save  the  poor  black 
whom  he  lifted  from  the  ground.  No  sight?  Yes,  at 
that  moment  he  did.  In  that  quiet  street,  standing  by 
the  black  boy,  poor  Job  —  weak  Job,  whom  people 
pitied  —  saw  a  grander  sight  than  all  the  crowd  in  the 
brilliant  main  street. 

Well  mightst  thou  stand  in  dumb  awe,  holding  by 
the  hand  the  helpless  black,  poor  Job!  for  in. that  in- 
stant thou  didst  see  with  undimmed  eyes  a  pageant 
such  as  poor  mortals  may  but  whisper  of,  — even  the 
Prince  of  Life  with  his  attendant  angels  moving  before 
thee:  yes,  and  on  thee  did  the  Prince  look  with  love, 
and  in  thy  ears  did  the  heavenly  choir  and  the  multi- 
tudinous voices  of  gathered  saints  sing,  for  of  old  were 
the  words  written,  and  now  thou  didst  hear  them  spoken 
to  thyself:  — 

"  Inasmuch  as  ye  have  done  it  unto  one  of  the  least  of 
these  my  brethren,  ye  have  done  it  unto  me. 

"  For  whosoever  shall  receive  one  of  such  children  in 
my  name,  receiveth  me." 

Weak  Job,  too,  had  seen  the  Prince  pass. 


THE   SNOW  FORT   ON   SLATTER'S 

HILL 

By  Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich 

THE  memory  of  man,  even  that  of  the  oldest  inhab- 
itant, runneth  not  back  to  the  time  when  there 
did  not  exist  a  feud  between  the  North  End  and  the 
South  End  boys  of  Ri vermouth. 

The  origin  of  the  feud  is  involved  in  mystery;  it  is 
impossible  to  say  which  party  was  the  first  aggressor 
in  the  far-off  ante-revolutionary  ages;  but  the  fact 
remains  that  the  youngsters  of  those  antipodal  sec- 
tions entertained  a  mortal  hatred  for  each  other,  and 
that  this  hatred  had  been  handed  down  from  gen- 
eration to  generation,  like  Miles  Standish's  punch- 
bowl. 

I  know  not  what  laws,  natural  or  unnatural,  regu- 
lated the  warmth  of  the  quarrel;  but  at  some  seasons 
it  raged  more  violently  than  at  others.  This  winter 
both  parties  were  unusually  lively  and  antagonistic. 
Great  was  the  wrath  of  the  South-Enders,  when  they 
discovered  that  the  North-Enders  had  thrown  up  a  fort 
on  the  crown  of  Slatter's  Hill. 

Slatter's  Hill,  or  No-man's-land,  as  it  was  generally 
called,  was  a  rise  of  ground  covering,  perhaps,  an  acre 
and  a  quarter,  situated  on  an  imaginary  line,  marking 
the  boundary  between  the  two  districts.    An  immense 

75 


MODERN   STORIES 

stratum  of  granite,  which  here  and  there  thrust  out  a 
wrinkled  boulder,  prevented  the  site  from  being  used 
for  building  purposes.  The  street  ran  on  either  side  of 
the  hill,  from  one  part  of  which  a  quantity  of  rock  had 
been  removed  to  form  the  underpinning  of  the  new  jail. 
This  excavation  made  the  approach  from  that  point 
all  but  impossible,  especially  when  the  ragged  ledges 
were  a-glitter  with  ice.  You  see  what  a  spot  it  was  for 
a  snow  fort. 

One  evening  twenty  or  thirty  of  the  North-Enders 
quietly  took  possession  of  Slatter's  Hill,  and  threw  up  a 
strong  line  of  breastworks,  something  after  this  shape: 


The  rear  of  the  intrenchment,  being  protected  by 
the  quarry,  was  left  open.  The  walls  were  four  feet 
high  and  twenty-two  inches  thick,  strengthened  at  the 
angles  by  stakes  driven  firmly  into  the  ground. 

Fancy  the  rage  of  the  South-Enders  the  next  day, 
when  they  spied  our  snowy  citadel,  with  Jack  Harris's 
red  silk  pocket-handkerchief  floating  defiantly  from 
the  flagstaff. 

In  less  than  an  hour  it  was  known  all  over  town, 
in  military  circles  at  least,  that  the  "Puddle-dockers" 
and  the  "River-rats"  (these  were  the  derisive  sub- 
titles bestowed  on  our  South-End  foes)  intended  to 
attack  the  fort  that  Saturday  afternoon. 

At  two  o'clock  all  the  fighting  boys  of  the  Temple 

76 


THE  SNOW  FORT  ON  SLATTER'S  HILL 

Grammar  School,  and  as  many  recruits  as  we  could 
muster,  lay  behind  the  walls  of  Fort  Slatter,  with  three 
hundred  compact  snowballs  piled  up  in  pyramids, 
awaiting  the  approach  of  the  enemy.  The  enemy  was 
not  slow  in  making  his  approach,  —  fifty  strong,  headed 
by  one  Mat  Ames.  Our  forces  were  under  the  com- 
mand of  General  J.  Harris. 

Before  the  action  commenced,  a  meeting  was  ar- 
ranged between  the  rival  commanders,  who  drew  up 
and  signed  certain  rules  and  regulations  respecting  the 
conduct  of  the  battle.  As  it  was  impossible  for  the  North- 
Enders  to  occupy  the  fort  permanently,  it  was  stipu- 
lated that  the  South-Enders  should  assault  it  only 
on  Wednesday  and  Saturday  afternoons,  between  the 
hours  of  two  and  six.  For  them  to  take  possession  of 
the  place  at  any  other  time  was  not  to  constitute  a  cap- 
ture, but  on  the  contrary  was  to  be  considered  a  dis- 
honorable and  cowardly  act. 

The  North-Enders,  on  the  other  hand,  agreed  to 
give  up  the  fort  whenever  ten  of  the  storming  party 
.succeeded  in  obtaining  at  one  time  a  footing  on  the 
parapet,  and  were  able  to  hold  the  same  for  the  space 
of  two  minutes.  Both  sides  were  to  abstain  from  putting 
pebbles  into  their  snowballs,  nor  was  it  permissible 
to  use  frozen  ammunition.  A  snowball  soaked  in 
water  and  left  out  to  cool  was  a  projectile  which  in 
previous  years  had  been  resorted  to  with  disastrous 
results. 

These  preliminaries  settled,  the  commanders  re- 
tired to  their  respective  corps.  The  interview  had  taken 
place  on  the  hillside  between  the  opposing  lines. 

77 


MODERN  STORIES 

General  Harris  divided  his  men  into  two  bodies: 
the  first  comprised  the  most  skillful  marksmen,  or 
gunners;  the  second,  the  reserve  force,  was  composed 
of  the  strongest  boys,  whose  duty  it  was  to  repel  the 
scaling  parties,  and  to  make  occasional  sallies  for 
the  purpose  of  capturing  prisoners,  who  were  bound 
by  the  articles  of  treaty  to  faithfully  serve  under  our 
flag  until  they  were  exchanged  at  the  close  of  the 
day. 

The  repellers  were  called  light  infantry;  but  when 
they  carried  on  operations  beyond  the  fort  they  became 
cavalry.  It  was  also  their  duty,  when  not  otherwise  en- 
gaged,  to  manufacture  snowballs.  The  General's  staff 
consisted  of  five  Templars  (I  among  the  number,  wTith 
the  rank  of  Major),  who  carried  the  General's  orders 
and  looked  after  the  wounded. 

General  Mat  Ames,  a  veteran  commander,  was  no 
less  wide-awake  in  the  disposition  of  his  army.  Five 
companies,  each  numbering  but  six  men,  in  order  not 
to  present  too  big  a  target  to  our  sharpshooters,  were 
to  charge  the  fort  from  different  points,  their  advance 
being  covered  by  a  heavy  fire  from  the  gunners  posted 
in  the  rear.  Each  scaler  was  provided  with  only  two 
rounds  of  ammunition,  which  were  not  to  be  used  until 
he  had  mounted  the  breastwork  and  could  deliver  his 
shots  on  our  heads. 

The  following  cut  represents  the  interior  of  the 
fort  just  previous  to  the  assault.  Nothing  on  earth 
could  represent  the  state  of  things  after  the  first 
volley. 


78 


THE  SNOW  FORT  ON  SLATTER'S  HILL 


a.  Flagstaff. 

b.  General  Harris  and  his  Staff. 

c.  Ammunition. 

d.  Hospital. 


e.  e.  Reserve  corps. 
/.  /.  Gunners  in  position. 
g.  g.  The  quarry, 


The  enemy  was  posted  thus :  — 


7m* 

a.  a.  The  five  attacking  columns, 
c.  General  Ames's  headquarters. 


b.  b.  Artillery. 


The  thrilling  moment  had  now  arrived.  If  I  had 
been  going  into  a  real  engagement  I  could  not  have 
been  more  deeply  impressed  by  the  importance  of  the 
occasion. 

The  fort  opened  fire  first,  —  a  single  ball  from  the 
dexterous  hand  of  General  Harris  taking  General  Ames 
in  the  very  pit  of  his  stomach.  A  cheer  went  up  from 
Fort  Slatter.  In  an  instant  the  air  was  thick  with  fly- 
ing missiles,  in  the  midst  of  which  we  dimly  descried 
the  storming  parties  sweeping  up  the  hill,  shoulder  to 
shoulder.  The  shouts  of  the  leaders,  and  the  snow- 
balls bursting  like  shells  about  our  ears,  made  it  very 
lively. 

79 


MODERN  STORIES 

Not  more  than  a  dozen  of  the  enemy  succeeded  in 
reaching  the  crest  of  the  hill;  five  of  these  clambered 
upon  the  icy  walls,  where  they  were  instantly  grabbed 
by  the  legs  and  jerked  into  the  fort.  The  rest  retired 
confused  and  blinded  by  our  well-directed  fire. 

When  General  Harris  (with  his  right  eye  bunged 
up)  said,  "Soldiers,  I  am  proud  of  you!"  my  heart 
swelled  in  my  bosom. 

The  victory,  however,  had  not  been  without  its  price. 
Six  North-Enders,  having  rushed  out  to  harass  the  dis- 
comfited enemy,  were  gallantly  cut  off  by  General  Ames 
and  captured.  Among  these  were  Lieutenant  P.  Whit- 
comb  (who  had  no  business  to  join  in  the  charge,  being 
weak  in  the  knees),  and  Captain  Fred  Langdon,  of 
General  Harris's  staff.  Whitcomb  was  one  of  the  most 
notable  shots  on  our  side,  though  he  was  not  much  to 
boast  of  in  a  rough-and-tumble  fight,  owing  to  the  weak- 
ness before  mentioned.  General  Ames  put  him  among 
the  gunners,  and  we  were  quickly  made  aware  of  the 
loss  we  had  sustained,  by  receiving  a  frequent  artful  ball 
which  seemed  to  light  with  unerring  instinct  on  any 
nose  that  was  the  least  bit  exposed.  I  have  known  one 
of  Pepper's  snowballs,  fired  point-blank,  to  turn  a  cor- 
ner and  hit  a  boy  who  considered  himself  absolutely 
safe. 

But  we  had  no  time  for  vain  regrets.  The  battle  raged. 
Already  there  were  two  bad  cases  of  black  eye,  and 
one  of  nose-bleed,  in  the  hospital. 

It  was  glorious  excitement,  those  pell-mell  onslaughts 
and  hand-to-hand  struggles.  Twice  we  were  within  an 
ace  of  being  driven  from  our  stronghold,  when  Gen- 

80 


THE  SNOW  FORT  ON  SLATTER'S   HILL 

eral  Harris  and  his  staff  leaped  recklessly  upon  the  ram- 
parts and  hurled  the  besiegers  heels  over  head  down 
hill. 

At  sunset,  the  garrison  of  Fort  Slatter  was  still  un- 
conquered,  and  the  South-Enders,  in  a  solid  phalanx, 
marched  off  whistling  "Yankee  Doodle,"  while  we 
cheered  and  jeered  them  until  they  were  out  of  hearing. 

General  Ames  remained  behind  to  effect  an  exchange 
of  prisoners.  We  held  thirteen  of  his  men,  and  he  eleven 
of  ours.  General  Ames  proposed  to  call  it  an  even 
thing,  since  many  of  his  eleven  prisoners  were  officers, 
while  nearly  all  our  thirteen  captives  were  privates.  A 
dispute  arising  on  this  point,  the  two  noble  generals 
came  to  fisticuffs,  and  in  the  fracas  our  brave  com- 
mander got  his  remaining  well  eye  badly  damaged. 
This  did  n't  prevent  him  from  writing  a  general  order 
the  next  day,  on  a  slate,  in  which  he  complimented  the 
troops  on  their  heroic  behavior. 

On  the  following  Wednesday  the  siege  was  renewed. 
I  forget  whether  it  was  on  that  afternoon  or  the  next 
that  we  lost  Fort  Slatter;  but  lose  it  we  did,  with  much 
valuable  ammunition  and  several  men.  After  a  series 
of  desperate  assaults,  we  forced  General  Ames  to 
capitulate;  and  he,  in  turn,  made  the  place  too  hot 
to  hold  us.  So  from  day  to  day  the  tide  of  battle  surged 
to  and  fro,  sometimes  favoring  our  arms,  and  sometimes 
those  of  the  enemy. 

General  Ames  handled  his  men  with  great  skill;  his 
deadliest  foe  could  not  deny  that.  Once  he  outgen- 
eraled our  commander  in  the  following  manner:  He 
massed  his  gunners  on  our  left  and  opened  a  brisk  fire, 

81 


MODERN  STORIES 

under  cover  of  which  a  single  company  (six  men)  ad- 
vanced on  that  angle  of  the  fort.  Our  reserves  on 
the  right  rushed  over  to  defend  the  threatened  point. 
Meanwhile,  four  companies  of  the  enemy's  scalers 
made  a  detour  round  the  foot  of  the  hill,  and  dashed 
into  Fort  Slatter  without  opposition.  At  the  same  mo- 
ment General  Ames's  gunners  closed  in  on  our  left, 
and  there  we  were  between  two  fires.  Of  course  we 
had  to  vacate  the  fort.  A  cloud  rested  on  General 
Harris's  military  reputation  until  his  superior  tactics 
enabled  him  to  dispossess  the  enemy. 

As  the  winter  wore  on,  the  war  spirit  waxed  fiercer 
and  fiercer.  At  length  the  provision  against  using  heavy 
substances  in  the  snowballs  was  disregarded.  A  ball 
stuck  full  of  sand-bird  shot  came  tearing  into  Fort  Slat- 
ter. In  retaliation,  General  Harris  ordered  a  broadside 
of  shells;  i.  e.  snowballs  containing  marbles.  After  this, 
both  sides  never  failed  to  freeze  their  ammunition. 

It  was  no  longer  child's  play  to  march  up  to  the  walls 
of  Fort  Slatter,  nor  was  the  position  of  the  besieged 
less  perilous.  At  every  assault  three  or  four  boys  on 
each  side  were  disabled.  It  was  not  an  infrequent  oc- 
currence for  the  combatants  to  hold  up  a  flag  of  truce 
while  they  removed  some  insensible  comrade. 

Matters  grew  worse  and  worse.  Seven  North-Enders 
had  been  seriously  wounded,  and  a  dozen  South-Enders 
were  reported  on  the  sick  list.  The  selectmen  of  the 
town  awoke  to  the  fact  of  what  was  going  on,  and  de- 
tailed a  posse  of  police  to  prevent  further  disturbance. 
The  boys  at  the  foot  of  the  hill,  South-Enders  as  it  hap- 
pened, finding  themselves  assailed  in  the  rear  and  on 

82 


THE  SNOW  FORT  ON  SLATTER'S  HILL 

the  flank,  turned  round  and  attempted  to  beat  off  the 
watchmen.  In  this  they  were  sustained  by  numerous 
volunteers  from  the  fort,  who  looked  upon  the  inter- 
ference as  tyrannical. 

The  watch  were  determined  fellows,  and  charged 
the  boys  valiantly,  driving  them  all  into  the  fort,  where 
we  made  common  cause,  fighting  side  by  side  like  the 
best  of  friends.  In  vain  the  four  guardians  of  the  peace 
rushed  up  the  hill,  flourishing  their  clubs  and  calling 
upon  us  to  surrender.  They  could  not  get  within  ten 
yards  of  the  fort,  our  fire  was  so  destructive.  In  one 
of  the  onsets  a  man  named  Mugridge,  more  valorous 
than  his  peers,  threw  himself  upon  the  parapet,  when 
he  was  seized  by  twenty  pairs  of  hands,  and  dragged 
inside  the  breastwork,  where  fifteen  boys  sat  down  on 
him  to  keep  him  quiet. 

Perceiving  that  it  was  impossible  with  their  small 
number  to  dislodge  us,  the  watch  sent  for  reinforce- 
ments. Their  call  was  responded  to,  not  only  by  the 
whole  constabulary  force  (eight  men),  but  by  a  numer- 
ous body  of  citizens,  who  had  become  alarmed  at  the 
prospect  of  a  riot.  This  formidable  array  brought  us 
to  our  senses :  we  began  to  think  that  maybe  discretion 
was  the  better  part  of  valor.  General  Harris  and  Gen- 
eral Ames,  with  their  respective  staffs,  held  a  council 
of  war  in  the  hospital,  and  a  backward  movement  was 
decided  on.  So,  after  one  grand  farewell  volley,  we  fled, 
sliding,  jumping,  rolling,  tumbling  down  the  quarry 
at  the  rear  of  the  fort,  and  escaped  without  losing  a 
man. 

But  we  lost  Fort  Slatter  forever.  Those  battle-scarred 

83 


MODERN  STORIES 

ramparts  were  razed  to  the  ground,  and  humiliating 
ashes  sprinkled  over  the  historic  spot,  near  which  a 
solitary  lynx-eyed  policeman  was  seen  prowling  from 
time  to  time  during  the  rest  of  the  winter. 

The  event  passed  into  a  legend,  and  afterwards,  when 
later  instances  of  pluck  and  endurance  were  spoken 
of,  the  boys  would  say,  "You  ought  to  have  been  at 
the  fights  on  Slatter's  Hill!" 


THE    CRATCHITS'   CHRISTMAS 
DINNER 

By  Charles  Dickens 

SCROOGE  and  the  Ghost  of  Christmas  Present 
stood  in  the  city  streets  on  Christmas  morning, 
where  (for  the  weather  was  severe)  the  people  made  a 
rough  but  brisk  and  not  unpleasant  kind  of  music,  in 
scraping  the  snow  from  the  pavement  in  front  of  their 
dwellings,  and  from  the  tops  of  their  houses,  whence 
it  was  mad  delight  to  the  boys  to  see  it  come  plumping 
down  into  the  road  below,  and  splitting  into  artificial 
little  snow-storms. 

The  house  fronts  looked  black  enough,  and  the  win- 
dows blacker,  contrasting  with  the  smooth  white  sheet 
of  snow  upon  the  roofs,  and  with  the  dirtier  snow  upon 
the  ground ;  which  last  deposit  had  been  ploughed  up  in 
deep  furrows  by  the  heavy  wheels  of  carts  and  wagons; 
furrows  that  crossed  and  recrossed  each  other  hundreds 
of  times  where  the  great  streets  branched  off;  and  made 
intricate  channels,  hard  to  trace,  in  the  thick  yellow 
mud  and  icy  water.  The  sky  was  gloomy,  and  the  short- 
est streets  were  choked  up  with  a  dingy  mist,  half 
thawed,  half  frozen,  whose  heavier  particles  descended 
in  a  shower  of  sooty  atoms,  as  if  all  the  chimneys  in 
Great  Britain  had,  by  one  consent,  caught  fire,  and 
were  blazing  away  to  their  dear  hearts'  content.   There 

85 


MODERN  STORIES 

was  nothing  very  cheerful  in  the  climate  or  the  town, 
and  yet  was  there  an  air  of  cheerfulness  abroad  that 
the  clearest  summer  air  and  brightest  summer  sun  might 
have  endeavored  to  diffuse  in  vain. 

For  the  people  who  were  shoveling  away  on  the 
house-tops  were  jovial  and  full  of  glee,  calling  out  to 
one  another  from  the  parapets,  and  now  and  then  ex- 
changing a  facetious  snowball,  — better-natured  mis- 
sile far  than  many  a  wordy  jest,  — laughing  heartily 
if  it  went  right,  and  not  less  heartily  if  it  went  wrong. 
The  poulterers'  shops  were  still  half  open,  and  the 
fruiterers'  were  radiant  in  their  glory.  There  were  great, 
round,  pot-bellied  baskets  of  chestnuts,  shaped  like 
the  waistcoats  of  jolly  old  gentlemen,  lolling  at  the  doors, 
and  tumbling  out  into  the  street  in  their  apoplectic 
opulence.  There  were  ruddy,  brown-faced,  broad- 
girthed  Spanish  onions,  shining  in  the  fatness  of  their 
growth  like  Spanish  friars,  and  winking  from  their 
shelves  in  wanton  slyness  at  the  girls  as  they  went  by, 
and  glanced  demurely  at  the  hung-up  mistletoe.  There 
were  pears  and  apples,  clustered  high  in  blooming  pyra- 
mids ;  there  were  bunches  of  grapes,  made,  in  the  shop- 
keepers' benevolence,  to  dangle  from  conspicuous  hooks, 
that  people's  mouths  might  water  gratis  as  they  passed; 
there  were  piles  of  filberts,  mossy  and  brown,  recalling, 
in  their  fragrance,  ancient  walks  among  the  woods, 
and  pleasant  shufflings  ankle  deep  through  withered 
leaves;  there  were  Norfolk  biffins,  squab  and  swarthy, 
setting  off  the  yellow  of  the  oranges  and  lemons,  and, 
in  the  great  compactness  of  their  juicy  persons,  urgently 
entreating  and  beseeching  to  be  carried  home  in  paper 

86 


THE  CRATCHITS'  CHRISTMAS  DINNER 

bags  and  eaten  after  dinner.  The  very  gold  and  silver 
fish,  set  forth  among  these  choice  fruits  in  a  bowl,  though 
members  of  a  dull  and  stagnant-blooded  race,  appeared 
to  know  that  there  was  something  going  on;  and,  to 
a  fish,  went  gasping  round  and  round  their  little  world 
in  slow  and  passionless  excitement. 

The  grocers'!  oh,  the  grocers'!  nearly  closed,  with 
perhaps  two  shutters  down,  or  one;  but  through  those 
gaps  such  glimpses!  It  was  not  alone  that  the  scales 
descending  on  the  counter  made  a  merry  sound,  or  that 
the  twine  and  roller  parted  company  so  briskly,  or  that 
the  canisters  were  rattled  up  and  down  like  juggling 
tricks,  or  even  that  the  blended  scents  of  tea  and  coffee 
were  so  grateful  to  the  nose,  or  even  that  the  raisins 
were  so  plentiful  and  rare,  the  almonds  so  extremely 
white,  the  sticks  of  cinnamon  so  long  and  straight,  the 
other  spices  so  delicious,  the  candied  fruits  so  caked 
and  spotted  with  molten  sugar  as  to  make  the  coldest 
lookers-on  feel  faint,  and  subsequently  bilious.  Nor 
was  it  that  the  figs  were  moist  and  pulpy,  or  that  the 
French  plums  blushed  in  modest  tartness  from  their 
highly  decorated  boxes,  or  that  everything  was  good 
to  eat  and  in  its  Christmas  dress;  but  the  customers 
were  all  so  hurried  and  so  eager  in  the  hopeful  promise 
of  the  day,  that  they  tumbled  up  against  each  other  at 
the  door,  crashing  their  wicker  baskets  wildly,  and  left 
their  purchases  upon  the  counter,  and  came  running 
back  to  fetch  them,  and  committed  hundreds  of  the  like 
mistakes,  in  the  best  humor  possible;  while  the  grocer 
and  his  people  were  so  frank  and  fresh  that  the  polished 
hearts  with  which  they  fastened  their  aprons   behind 

87 


MODERN  STORIES 

might  have  been  their  own,  worn  outside  for  general 
inspection,  and  for  Christmas  daws  to  peck  at,  if  they 
chose. 

But  soon  the  steeples  called  good  people  all  to  church 
and  chapel,  and  away  they  came,  flocking  through  the 
streets  in  their  best  clothes,  and  with  their  gayest  faces. 
And  at  the  same  time  there  emerged  from  scores  of 
by-streets,  lanes,  and  nameless  turnings  innumerable 
people,  carrying  their  dinners  to  the  bakers'  shops.  The 
sight  of  these  poor  revellers  appeared  to  interest  the 
Spirit  very  much,  for  he  stood,  with  Scrooge  beside 
him,  in  a  baker's  doorway,  and,  taking  off  the  covers 
as  their  bearers  passed,  sprinkled  incense  on  their  din- 
ners from  his  torch.  And  it  was  a  very  uncommon  kind 
of  torch,  for  once  or  twice  when  there  were  angry  words 
between  some  dinner-carriers  who  had  jostled  each 
other,  he  shed  a  few  drops  of  water  on  them  from  it, 
and  their  good  humor  was  restored  directly.  For  they 
said,  it  was  a  shame  to  quarrel  upon  Christmas  Day. 
And  so  it  was!    God  love  it,  so  it  was! 

In  time  the  bells  ceased,  and  the  bakers  were  shut 
up;  and  yet  there  was  a  genial  shadowing  forth  of  all 
these  dinners,  and  the  progress  of  their  cooking,  in  the 
thawed  blotch  of  wet  above  each  baker's  oven,  where 
the  pavement  smoked  as  if  its  stones  were  cooking  too. 

"  Is  there  a  peculiar  flavor  in  what  you  sprinkle  from 
your  torch  ? "  asked  Scrooge. 

"There  is.    My  own." 

"  Would  it  apply  to  any  kind  of  dinner  on  this  day  ?  " 
asked  Scrooge. 

"To  any  kindly  given.    To  a  poor  one  most." 

88 


'  IS  THERE  A  PECULIAR  FLAVOR  IN  WHAT  YOU  SPRINKLE  FROM 


** 


YOUR  TORCH?"  ASKED  SCROOGE.  "THERE  IS:  MY  OWN 


i3£S3f§2E 


3SA 


THE   CRATCHITS'   CHRISTMAS  DINNER 

"Why  to  a  poor  one  most?"  asked  Scrooge. 

"Because  it  needs  it  most." 

"Spirit,"  said  Scrooge,  after  a  moment's  thought, 
"I  wonder  you,  of  all  the  beings  in  the  many  worlds 
about  us,  should  desire  to  cramp  these  people's  oppor- 
tunities of  innocent  enjoyment." 

"I!"  cried  the  Spirit. 

"You  would  deprive  them  of  their  means  of  dining 
every  seventh  day,  often  the  only  day  on  which  they 
can  be  said  to  dine  at  all,"  said  Scrooge,  "wouldn't 
you?" 

"I!"  cried  the  Spirit. 

"  You  seek  to  close  these  places  on  the  Seventh  Day," 
said  Scrooge.    "And  it  comes  to  the  same  thing." 

"I  seek!"  exclaimed  the  Spirit. 

"  Forgive  me  if  I  am  wrong.  It  has  been  done  in  your 
name,  or  at  least  in  that  of  your  family,"  said  Scrooge. 

"There  are  some  upon  this  earth  of  yours,"  re- 
turned the  Spirit,  "who  lay  claim  to  know  us,  and 
who  do  their  deeds  of  passion,  pride,  ill-will,  hatred, 
envy,  bigotry,  and  selfishness  in  our  name,  who  are  as 
strange  to  us,  and  all  our  kith  and  kin,  as  if  they  had 
never  lived.  Remember  that,  and  charge  their  doings 
on  themselves,  not  us." 

Scrooge  promised  that  he  would;  and  they  went 
on,  invisible,  as  they  had  been  before,  into  the  suburbs 
of  the  town.  It  was  a  remarkable  quality  of  the  Ghost 
(which  Scrooge  had  observed  at  the  baker's)  that,  not- 
withstanding his  gigantic  size,  he  could  accommodate 
himself  to  any  place  with  ease;  and  that  he  stood  be- 
neath a  low  roof  quite  as  gracefully,  and  like  a  super- 

89 


MODERN  STORIES 

natural  creature,  as  it  was  possible  he  could  have  done 
in  any  lofty  hall. 

And  perhaps  it  was  the  pleasure  the  good  Spirit  had 
in  showing  off  this  power  of  his,  or  else  it  was  his  own 
kind,  generous,  hearty  nature,  and  his  sympathy  with 
all  poor  men,  that  led  him  straight  to  Scrooge's  clerk's; 
for  there  he  went,  and  took  Scrooge  with  him,  holding 
to  his  robe;  and  on  the  threshold  of  the  door  the  Spirit 
smiled,  and  stopped  to  bless  Bob  Cratchit's  dwelling 
with  the  sprinklings  of  his  torch.  Think  of  that!  Bob 
had  but  fifteen  "  bob "  a  week  himself ;  he  pocketed 
on  Saturdays  but  fifteen  copies  of  his  Christian  name; 
and  yet  the  Ghost  of  Christmas  Present  blessed  his 
four-roomed  house! 

Then  up  rose  Mrs.  Cratchit,  Cratchit's  wife,  dressed 
out  but  poorly  in  a  twice-turned  gown,  but  brave  in 
ribbons,  which  are  cheap  and  make  a  goodly  show  for 
sixpence;  and  she  laid  the  cloth,  assisted  by  Belinda 
Cratchit,  second  of  her  daughters,  also  brave  in  rib- 
bons; while  Master  Peter  Cratchit  plunged  a  fork  into 
the  saucepan  of  potatoes,  and  getting  the  corners  of  his 
monstrous  shirt-collar  (Bob's  private  property,  con- 
ferred upon  his  son  and  heir  in  honor  of  the  day)  into 
his  mouth,  rejoiced  to  find  himself  so  gallantly  attired, 
and  yearned  to  show  his  linen  in  the  fashionable  parks. 
And  now  two  smaller  Cratchits,  boy  and  girl,  came 
tearing  in,  screaming  that  outside  the  baker's  they  had 
smelt  the  goose,  and  known  it  for  their  own ;  and,  bask- 
ing in  luxurious  thoughts  of  sage  and  onion,  these  young 
Cratchits  danced  about  the  table,  and  exalted  Master 
Peter  Cratchit  to  the  skies,  while  he  (not  proud,  al- 

90 


THE  CRATCHITS'  CHRISTMAS  DINNER 

though  his  collar  nearly  choked  him)  blew  the  fire, 
until  the  slow  potatoes,  bubbling  up,  knocked  loudly 
at  the  saucepan  lid  to  be  let  out  and  peeled. 

"What  has  ever  got  your  precious  father,  then?" 
said  Mrs.  Cratchit.  "And  your  brother,  Tiny  Tim? 
And  Martha  warn't  as  late  last  Christmas  Day  by  half 
an  hour!" 

"Here's  Martha,  mother,"  said  a  girl,  appearing  as 
she  spoke. 

"Here's  Martha,  mother!"  cried  the  two  young 
Cratchits.    "Hurrah!   There's  such  a  goose,  Martha!" 

"Why,  bless  your  heart  alive,  my  dear,  how  late  you 
are!"  said  Mrs.  Cratchit,  kissing  her  a  dozen  times, 
and  taking  off  her  shawl  and  bonnet  for  her  with 
officious  zeal. 

"We'd  a  deal  of  work  to  finish  up  last  night,"  re- 
plied the  girl,  "and  had  to  clear  away  this  morning, 
mother ! " 

"Well!  Never  mind  so  long  as  you  are  come,"  said 
Mrs.  Cratchit.  "Sit  ye  down  before  the  fire,  my  dear, 
and  have  a  warm,  Lord  bless  ye!" 

"No,  no!  There's  father  coming,"  cried  the  two 
young  Cratchits,  who  were  everywhere  at  once.  "Hide, 
Martha,  hide!" 

So  Martha  hid  herself,  and  in  came  little  Bob,  the 
father,  with  at  least  three  feet  of  comforter,  exclusive 
of  the  fringe,  hanging  down  before  him ;  and  his  thread- 
bare clothes  darned  up  and  brushed,  to  look  seasonable ; 
and  Tiny  Tim  upon  his  shoulder.  Alas  for  Tiny  Tim, 
he  bore  a  little  crutch,  and  had  his  limbs  supported 
by  an  iron  frame! 

91 


MODERN  STORIES 

"Why,  where 's  our  Martha?"  cried  Bob  Cratchit, 
looking  round. 

"Not  coming,"  said  Mrs.  Cratchit. 

"Not  coming!"  said  Bob,  with  a  sudden  declension 
in  his  high  spirits;  for  he  had  been  Tim's  blood  horse 
all  the  way  from  the  church,  and  had  come  home  ram- 
pant.   "Not  coming  upon  Christmas  Day!" 

Martha  did  n't  like  to  see  him  disappointed,  if  it 
were  only  in  joke;  so  she  came  out  prematurely  from 
behind  the  closet  door,  and  ran  into  his  arms,  while 
the  two  young  Cratchits  hustled  Tiny  Tim,  and  bore 
him  off  into  the  wash-house,  that  he  might  hear  the 
pudding  singing  in  the  copper. 

"And  how  did  little  Tim  behave?"  asked  Mrs. 
Cratchit,  when  she  had  rallied  Bob  on  his  credulity,  and 
Bob  had  hugged  his  daughter  to  his  heart's  content. 

"As  good  as  gold,"  said  Bob,  "and  better.  Some- 
how he  gets  thoughtful,  sitting  by  himself  so  much, 
and  thinks  the  strangest  things  you  ever  heard.  He 
told  me,  coming  home,  that  he  hoped  the  people  saw 
him  in  the  church,  because  he  was  a  cripple,  and  it 
might  be  pleasant  to  them  to  remember,  upon  Christ- 
mas Day,  who  made  lame  beggars  walk  and  blind  men 
see." 

Bob's  voice  was  tremulous  when  he  told  them  this, 
and  trembled  more  when  he  said  that  Tiny  Tim  was 
growing  strong  and  hearty. 

His  active  little  crutch  was  heard  upon  the  floor, 
and  back  came  Tiny  Tim  before  another  word  was 
spoken,  escorted  by  his  brother  and  sister  to  his  stool 
beside  the  fire;  and  while  Bob,  turning  up  his  cuffs,  — 

92 


THE  CRATCHITS'  CHRISTMAS  DINNER 

as  if,  poor  fellow,  they  were  capable  of  being  made 
more  shabby,  —  compounded  some  hot  mixture  in  a 
jug  with  gin  and  lemons,  and  stirred  it  round  and  round, 
and  put  it  on  the  hob  to  simmer,  Master  Peter  and  the 
two  ubiquitous  young  Cratchits  went  to  fetch  the  goose, 
with  which  they  soon  returned  in  high  procession. 

Such  a  bustle  ensued  that  you  might  have  thought 
a  goose  the  rarest  of  all  birds;  a  feathered  phenome- 
non, to  which  a  black  swan  was  a  matter  of  course, 
—  and  in  truth  it  was  something  very  like  it  in  that 
house.  Mrs.  Cratchit  made  the  gravy  (ready  before- 
hand in  a  little  saucepan)  hissing  hot;  Master  Peter 
mashed  the  potatoes  with  incredible  vigor;  Miss  Be- 
linda sweetened  up  the  apple-sauce;  Martha  dusted 
the  hot  plates;  Bob  took  Tiny  Tim  beside  him  in  a 
tiny  corner  at  the  table;  the  two  young  Cratchits  set 
chairs  for  everybody,  not  forgetting  themselves,  and, 
mounting  guard  upon  their  posts,  crammed  spoons 
into  their  mouths,  lest  they  should  shriek  for  goose 
before  their  turn  came  to  be  helped.  At  last  the  dishes 
were  set  on,  and  grace  was  said.  It  was  succeeded  by 
a  breathless  pause,  as  Mrs.  Cratchit,  looking  slowly 
all  along  the  carving-knife,  prepared  to  plunge  it  in  the 
breast;  but  when  she  did,  and  when  the  long-expected 
gush  of  stuffing  issued  forth,  one  murmur  of  delight 
arose  all  round  the  board,  and  even  Tiny  Tim,  excited 
by  the  two  young  Cratchits,  beat  on  the  table  with  the 
handle  of  his  knife,  and  feebly  cried,  "Hurrah!" 

There  never  was  such  a  goose.  Bob  said  he  did  n't 
believe  there  ever  was  such  a  goose  cooked.  Its  ten- 
derness and  flavor,  size  and  cheapness,  were  the  themes 

93 


MODERN  STORIES 

of  universal  admiration.  Eked  out  by  apple-sauce  and 
mashed  potatoes,  it  was  a  sufficient  dinner  for  the  whole 
family;  indeed,  as  Mrs.  Cratchit  said  with  great  de- 
light (surveying  one  small  atom  of  a  bone  upon  the 
dish),  they  had  n't  ate  it  all  at  last!  Yet  every  one  had 
had  enough,  and  the  youngest  Cratchits  in  particular 
were  steeped  in  sage  and  onion  to  the  eyebrows!  But 
now,  the  plates  being  changed  by  Miss  Belinda,  Mrs. 
Cratchit  left  the  room  alone  —  too  nervous  to  bear  wit- 
nesses —  to  take  the  pudding  up,  and  bring  it  in. 

Suppose  it  should  not  be  done  enough!  Suppose  it 
should  break  in  turning  out !  Suppose  somebody  should 
have  got  over  the  wall  of  the  back  yard  and  stolen  it, 
while  they  were  merry  with  the  goose,  —  a  supposition 
at  which  the  two  young  Cratchits  became  livid!  All 
sorts  of  horrors  were  supposed 

Hallo !  A  great  deal  of  steam !  The  pudding  was  out 
of  the  copper.  A  smell  like  a  washing-day!  That  was 
the  cloth.  A  smell  like  an  eating-house  and  a  pastry- 
cook's next  door  to  each  other,  with  a  laundress's  next 
door  to  that !  That  was  the  pudding !  In  half  a  minute 
Mrs.  Cratchit  entered  —  flushed,  but  smiling  proudly 
—  with  the  pudding,  like  a  speckled  cannon-ball,  so 
hard  and  firm,  blazing  in  half  of  half-a-quartern  of 
ignited  brandy,  and  bedight  with  Christmas  holly  stuck 
into  the  top. 

Oh,  a  wonderful  pudding!  Bob  Cratchit  said,  and 
calmly,  too,  that  he  regarded  it  as  the  greatest  success 
achieved  by  Mrs.  Cratchit  since  their  marriage.  Mrs. 
Cratchit  said  that,  now  the  weight  was  off  her  mind,  she 
would  confess  she  had  her  doubts  about  the  quantity 

94 


THE   CRATCHITS'   CHRISTMAS   DINNER 

of  flour.  Everybody  had  something  to  say  about  it,  but 
nobody  said  or  thought  it  was  at  all  a  small  pudding 
for  a  large  family.  It  would  have  been  flat  heresy  to  do 
so.  Any  Cratchit  would  have  blushed  to  hint  at  such  a 
thing. 

At  last  the  dinner  was  all  done,  the  cloth  was  cleared, 
the  hearth  swept,  and  the  fire  made  up.  The  compound 
in  the  jug  being  tasted,  and  considered  perfect,  apples 
and  oranges  were  put  upon  the  table,  and  a  shovelful 
of  chestnuts  on  the  fire.  Then  all  the  Cratchit  family 
drew  round  the  hearth  in  what  Bob  Cratchit  called  a 
circle,  meaning  half  a  one;  and  at  Bob  Cratchit's  elbow 
stood  the  family  display  of  glass,  —  two  tumblers  and 
a  custard-cup  without  a  handle. 

These  held  the  hot  stuff  from  the  jug,  however,  as 
well  as  golden  goblets  would  have  done ;  and  Bob  served 
it  out  with  beaming  looks,  while  the  chestnuts  on  the 
fire  sputtered  and  cracked  noisily.  Then  Bob  pro- 
posed :  — 

"A  Merry  Christmas  to  us  all,  my  dears.  God  bless 
us!" 

Which  all  the  family  reechoed. 

"God  bless  us  every  one!"  said  Tiny  Tim,  the  last 
of  all. 


JACKANAPES 

By  Juliana  Horatia  Ewing 
I 

Last  noon  beheld  them  full  of  lusty  life, 

Last  eve  in  Beauty's  circle  proudly  gay, 

The  midnight  brought  the  signal-sound  of  strife, 

The  morn  the  marshaling  in  arms  —  the  day 

Battle's  magnificently  stern  array! 

The  thunder-clouds  rose  o'er  it,  which  when  rent 

The  earth  is  cover'd  thick  with  other  clay, 

Which  her  own  clay  shall  cover,  heap'd  and  pent, 

Rider  and  horse,  —  friend,  foe,  —  in  one  red  burial  blent, 

Their  praise  is  hymn'd  by  loftier  harps  than  mine; 
Yet  one  would  I  select  from  that  proud  throng. 

To  thee,  to  thousands,  of  whom  each 

And  one  as  all  a  ghastly  gap  did  make 

In  his  own  kind  and  kindred,  whom  to  teach 

Forgetfulness  were  mercy  for  their  sake; 

The  Archangel's  trump,  not  Glory's,  must  awake 

Those  whom  they  thirst  for. 

Byron. 

TWO  Donkeys  and  the  Geese  lived  on  the  Green, 
and  all  other  residents  of  any  social  standing  lived 
in  houses  round  it.  The  houses  had  no  names.  Every- 
body's address  was  "The  Green,5'  but  the  Postman 
and  the  people  of  the  place  knew  where  each  family 
lived.    As  to  the  rest  of  the  world,  what  has  one  to  do 

96 


JACKANAPES 

with  the  rest  of  the  world  when  one  is  safe  at  home  on 
one's  own  Goose  Green  ?  Moreover,  if  a  stranger  did 
come  on  any  lawful  business,  he  might  ask  his  way  at 
the  shop. 

Most  of  the  inhabitants  were  long-lived,  early  deaths 
(like  that  of  the  little  Miss  Jessamine)  being  excep- 
tional; and  most  of  the  old  people  were  proud  of  their 
age,  especially  the  sexton,  who  would  be  ninety-nine 
come  Martinmas,  and  whose  father  remembered  a  man 
who  had  carried  arrows,  as  a  boy,  for  the  battle  of 
Flodden  Field.  The  Gray  Goose  and  the  big  Miss 
Jessamine  were  the  only  elderly  persons  who  kept 
their  ages  secret.  Indeed,  Miss  Jessamine  never  men- 
tioned any  one's  age,  or  recalled  the  exact  year  in 
which  anything  had  happened.  She  said  that  she  had 
been  taught  that  it  was  bad  manners  to  do  so  "in  a 
mixed  assembly." 

The  Gray  Goose  also  avoided  dates;  but  this  was 
partly  because  her  brain,  though  intelligent,  was  not 
mathematical,  and  computation  was  beyond  her.  She 
never  got  farther  than  "last  Michaelmas,"  "the  Mich- 
aelmas before  that,"  and  "the  Michaelmas  before  the 
Michaelmas  before  that."  After  this  her  head,  which 
was  small,  became  confused,  and  she  said,  "Ga,  ga!" 
and  changed  the  subject. 

But  she  remembered  the  little  Miss  Jessamine,  the 
Miss  Jessamine  with  the  "conspicuous"  hair.  Her 
aunt,  the  big  Miss  Jessamine,  said  it  was  her  only  fault. 
The  hair  was  clean,  was  abundant,  was  glossy;  but 
do  what  you  would  with  it,  it  never  looked  quite  like 
^ther  people's.    And  at  church,  after  Saturday  night's 

97 


MODERN  STORIES 

wash,  it  shone  like  the  best  brass  fender  after  a  spring 
cleaning.  In  short,  it  was  conspicuous,  which  does  not 
become  a  young  woman,  especially  in  church. 

Those  were  worrying  times  altogether,  and  the  Green 
was  used  for  strange  purposes.  A  political  meeting 
was  held  on  it  with  the  village  Cobbler  in  the  chair, 
and  a  speaker  who  came  by  stage-coach  from  the  town, 
where  they  had  wrecked  the  bakers'  shops,  and  dis- 
cussed the  price  of  bread.  He  came  a  second  time  by 
stage;  but  the  people  had  heard  something  about  him 
in  the  meanwhile,  and  they  did  not  keep  him  on  the 
Green.  They  took  him  to  the  pond  and  tried  to  make 
him  swim,  which  he  could  not  do,  and  the  whole  affair 
was  very  disturbing  to  all  quiet  and  peaceable  fowls. 
After  which  another  man  came,  and  preached  sermons 
on  the  Green,  and  a  great  many  people  went  to  hear 
him;  for  those  were  "trying  times,"  and  folk  ran  hither 
and  thither  for  comfort.  And  then  what  did  they  do 
but  drill  the  plowboys  on  the  Green,  to  get  them  ready 
to  fight  the  French,  and  teach  them  the  goose-step! 
However,  that  came  to  an  end  at  last;  for  Bony  was 
sent  to  St.  Helena,  and  the  plowboys  were  sent  back 
to  the  plow. 

Everybody  lived  in  fear  of  Bony  in  those  days,  es- 
pecially the  naughty  children,  who  were  kept  in  order 
during  the  day  by  threats  of  "Bony  shall  have  you," 
and  who  had  nightmares  about  him  in  the  dark.  They 
thought  he  was  an  Ogre  in  a  cocked  hat.  The  Gray 
Goose  thought  he  was  a  Fox,  and  that  all  the  men  of 
England  were  going  out  in  red  coats  to  hunt  him.  It 
was  no  use  to  argue  the  point;  for  she  had  a  very  small 

98 


JACKANAPES 

head,  and  when  one  idea  got  into  it  there  was  no  room 
for  another. 

Besides,  the  Gray  Goose  never  saw  Bony,  nor  did 
the  children,  which  rather  spoilt  the  terror  of  him,  so 
that  the  Black  Captain  became  more  effective  as  a  Bogy 
with  hardened  offenders.  The  Gray  Goose  remem- 
bered his  coming  to  the  place  perfectly.  What  he  came 
for  she  did  not  pretend  to  know.  It  was  all  part  and 
parcel  of  the  war  and  bad  times.  He  was  called  the 
Black  Captain,  partly  because  of  himself  and  partly 
because  of  his  wonderful  black  mare.  Strange  stories 
were  afloat  of  how  far  and  how  fast  that  mare  could 
go  when  her  master's  hand  was  on  her  mane  and  he 
whispered  in  her  ear.  Indeed,  some  people  thought  we 
might  reckon  ourselves  very  lucky  if  we  were  not  out 
of  the  frying-pan  into  the  fire,  and  had  not  got  a  cer- 
tain well-known  Gentleman  of  the  Road  to  protect  us 
against  the  French.  But  that,  of  course,  made  him  none 
the  less  useful  to  the  Johnsons'  Nurse  when  the  little 
Miss  Johnsons  were  naughty. 

"You  leave  off  crying  this  minnit,  Miss  Jane,  or  I'll 
give  you  right  away  to  that  horrid  wicked  officer.  Je- 
mima! just  look  out  o'  the  windy,  if  you  please,  and 
see  if  the  Black  Cap'n's  come  with  his  horse  to  carry 
away  Miss  Jane." 

And  there,  sure  enough,  the  Black  Captain  strode  by, 
with  his  sword  clattering  as  if  he  did  not  know  whose 
head  to  cut  off  first.  But  he  did  not  call  for  Miss  Jane 
that  time.  He  went  on  to  the  Green,  where  he  came 
so  suddenly  upon  the  eldest  Master  Johnson,  sitting 
in  a  puddle  on  purpose,  in  his  new  nankeen  skeleton 

99 


MODERN  STORIES 

suit,  that  the  young  gentleman  thought  judgment  had 
overtaken  him  at  last,  and  abandoned  himself  to  the 
bowlings  of  despair.  His  howls  were  redoubled  when 
he  was  clutched  from  behind  and  swung  over  the  Black 
Captain's  shoulder;  but  in  five  minutes  his  tears  were 
stanched,  and  he  was  playing  with  the  officer's  accou- 
trements. All  of  which  the  Gray  Goose  saw  with  her 
own  eyes,  and  heard  afterwards  that  that  bad  boy  had 
been  whining  to  go  back  to  the  Black  Captain  ever  since, 
which  showed  how  hardened  he  was,  and  that  nobody 
but  Bonaparte  himself  could  be  expected  to  do  him  any 
good. 

But  those  were  "trying  times."  It  was  bad  enough 
when  the  pickle  of  a  large  and  respectable  family  cried 
for  the  Black  Captain;  when  it  came  to  the  little  Miss 
Jessamine  crying  for  him,  one  felt  that  the  sooner  the 
French  landed  and  had  done  with  it,  the  better. 

The  big  Miss  Jessamine's  objection  to  him  was  that 
he  was  a  soldier;  and  this  prejudice  was  shared  by  all 
the  Green.  "A  soldier,"  as  the  speaker  from  the  town 
had  observed,  "is  a  bloodthirsty,  unsettled  sort  of  a 
rascal,  that  the  peaceable,  home-loving,  bread-winning 
citizen  can  never  conscientiously  look  on  as  a  brother 
till  he  has  beaten  his  sword  into  a  plowshare  and  his 
spear  into  a  pruning-hook." 

On  the  other  hand,  there  was  some  truth  in  what  the 
Postman  (an  old  soldier)  said  in  reply,  —  that  the  sword 
has  to  cut  a  way  for  us  out  of  many  a  scrape  into  which 
our  bread-winners  get  us  when  they  drive  their  plow- 
shares into  fallows  that  don't  belong  to  them.  Indeed, 
whilst  our  most  peaceful  citizens  were  prosperous  chiefly 

100 


JACKANAPES 

by  means  of  cotton,  of  sugar,  and  of  the  rise  and  fall 
of  the  money-market  (not  to  speak  of  such  salable 
matters  as  opium,  firearms,  and  "black  ivory"),  disturb- 
ances were  apt  to  arise  in  India,  Africa,  and  other  out- 
landish parts,  where  the  fathers  of  our  domestic  race 
were  making  fortunes  for  their  families.  And  for  that 
matter,  even  on  the  Green,  we  did  not  wish  the  military 
to  leave  us  in  the  lurch,  so  long  as  there  was  any  fear 
that  the  French  were  coming. 

To  let  the  Black  Captain  have  little  Miss  Jessamine, 
however,  was  another  matter.  Her  aunt  would  not  hear 
of  it;  and  then,  to  crown  all,  it  appeared  that  the  Cap- 
tain's father  did  not  think  the  young  lady  good  enough 
for  his  son.  Never  was  any  affair  more  clearly  brought 
to  a  conclusion. 

But  those  were  "trying  times;"  and  one  moonlight 
night,  when  the  Gray  Goose  was  sound  asleep  upon 
one  leg,  the  Green  was  rudely  shaken  under  her  by  the 
thud  of  a  horse's  feet.  "Ga,  ga!"  said  she,  putting 
down  the  other  leg  and  running  away. 

By  the  time  she  returned  to  her  place  not  a  thing 
was  to  be  seen  or  heard.  The  horse  had  passed  like  a 
shot.  But  next  day  there  was  hurrying  and  skurrying 
and  cackling  at  a  very  early  hour,  all  about  the  white 
house  with  the  black  beams,  where  Miss  Jessamine 
lived.  And  when  the  sun  was  so  low  and  the  shadows 
so  long  on  the  grass  that  the  Gray  Goose  felt  ready  to 
run  away  at  the  sight  of  her  own  neck,  little  Miss  Jane 
Johnson  and  her  "particular  friend"  Clarinda  sat  un- 
der the  big  oak-tree  on  the  Green,  and  Jane  pinched 
Clarinda's  little  finger  till  she  found  that  she  could  keep 

101 


MODERN  STORIES 

a  secret,  and  then  she  told  her  in  confidence  that  she 
had  heard  from  Nurse  and  Jemima  that  Miss  Jessa- 
mine's niece  had  been  a  very  naughty  girl,  and  that  thaf 
horrid  wicked  officer  had  come  for  her  on  his  black 
horse  and  carried  her  right  away. 

"Will  she  never  come  back?"  asked  Clarinda. 

"Oh,  no!"  said  Jane  decidedly.  "Bony  never  brings 
people  back." 

"Not  never  no  more?"  sobbed  Clarinda,  for  she 
was  weak-minded,  and  could  not  bear  to  think  that 
Bony  never,  never  let  naughty  people  go  home  again. 

Next  day  Jane  had  heard  more. 

"He  has  taken  her  to  a  Green." 

"A  Goose  Green?"  asked  Clarinda. 

"No.  A  Gretna  Green.  Don't  ask  so  many  ques- 
tions, child,"  said  Jane,  who,  having  no  more  to  tell, 
gave  herself  airs. 

Jane  was  wrong  on  one  point.  Miss  Jessamine's 
niece  did  come  back,  and  she  and  her  husband  were 
forgiven.  The  Gray  Goose  remembered  it  well;  it  was 
Michaelmas-tide,  the  Michaelmas  before  the  Mich- 
aelmas before  the  Michaelmas  —  but,  ga,  ga!  What 
does  the  date  matter?  It  was  autumn,  harvest  time, 
and  everybody  was  so  busy  prophesying  and  praying 
about  the  crops,  that  the  young  couple  wandered 
through  the  lanes,  and  got  blackberries  for  Miss  Jessa- 
mine's celebrated  crab  and  blackberry  jam,  and  made 
guys  of  themselves  with  bryony  wreaths,  and  not  a  soul 
troubled  his  head  about  them,  except  the  children  and 
the  Postman.  The  children  dogged  the  Black  Captain's 
footsteps   (his  bubble  reputation  as  an  Ogre  having 

102 


JACKANAPES 

burst),  clamoring  for  a  ride  on  the  black  mare.  And 
the  Postman  would  go  somewhat  out  of  his  postal  way 
to  catch  the  Captain's  dark  eye,  and  show  that  he  had 
not  forgotten  how  to  salute  an  officer. 

But  they  were  "trying  times."  One  afternoon  the 
black  mare  was  stepping  gently  up  and  down  the  grass, 
with  her  head  at  her  master's  shoulder,  and  as  many 
children  crowded  on  to  her  silky  back  as  if  she  had 
been  an  elephant  in  a  menagerie;  and  the  next  after- 
noon she  carried  him  away,  sword  and  sabretache  clatter- 
ing war  music  at  her  side,  and  the  old  Postman  waiting 
for  them,  rigid  with  salutation,  at  the  four  cross-roads. 

War  and  bad  times!  It  was  a  hard  winter;  and 
the  big  Miss  Jessamine  and  the  little  Miss  Jessamine 
(but  she  was  Mrs.  Black  Captain  now)  lived  very  eco- 
nomically, that  they  might  help  their  poorer  neighbors. 
They  neither  entertained  nor  went  into  company;  but 
the  young  lady  always  went  up  the  village  as  far  as  the 
George  and  Dragon,  for  air  and  exercise,  when  the 
London  Mail  came  in. 

One  day  (it  was  a  day  in  the  following  June)  it  came 
in  earlier  than  usual,  and  the  young  lady  was  not  there 
to  meet  it. 

But  a  crowd  soon  gathered  round  the  George  and 
Dragon,  gaping  to  see  the  Mail  Coach  dressed  with 
flowers  and  oak-leaves,  and  the  guard  wearing  a  laurel 
wreath  over  and  above  his  royal  livery.  The  ribbons 
that  decked  the  horses  were  stained  and  flecked  with 
the  warmth  and  foam  of  the  pace  at  which  they  had 
come,  for  they  had  pressed  on  with  the  news  of  Victory. 

Miss  Jessamine  was  sitting  with  her  niece  under  the 

103 


MODERN  STORIES 

oak  tree  on  the  Green,  when  the  Postman  put  a  news- 
paper silently  into  her  hand.   Her  niece  turned  quickly. 

"Is  there  news  ?" 

"Don't  agitate  yourself,  my  dear,"  said  her  aunt. 
"I  will  read  it  aloud,  and  then  we  can  enjoy  it  to- 
gether; a  far  more  comfortable  method,  my  love,  than 
when  you  go  up  the  village,  and  come  home  out  of 
breath,  having  snatched  half  the  news  as  you  run." 

"I  am  all  attention,  dear  aunt,"  said  the  little  lady, 
clasping  her  hands  tightly  on  her  lap. 

Then  Miss  Jessamine  read  aloud,  —  she  was  proud 
of  her  reading,  —  and  the  old  soldier  stood  at  attention 
behind  her,  with  such  a  blending  of  pride  and  pity  on 
his  face  as  it  was  strange  to  see. 

"Downing  Street, 

"  June  22,  1815,  1  A.  M." 

"That's  one  in  the  morning,"  gasped  the  Postman; 
"beg  your  pardon,  mum." 

But  though  he  apologized,  he  could  not  refrain  from 
echoing  here  and  there  a  weighty  word:  "Glorious 
victory  "  —  "Two  hundred  pieces  of  artillery  "  —  "Im- 
mense quantity  of  ammunition  "  —  and  so  forth. 

"The  loss  of  the  British  Army  upon  this  occasion 
has  unfortunately  been  most  severe.  It  had  not  been 
possible  to  make  out  a  return  of  the  killed  and  wounded 
when  Major  Percy  left  headquarters.  The  names  of 
the  officers  killed  and  wounded,  as  far  as  they  can  be 
collected,  are  annexed. 

"I  have  the  honor — "  / 

104 


JACKANAPES 

"The  list,  aunt!    Read  the  list!" 

"My  love  —  my  darling  —  let  us  go  in  and  " — 

"No.    Now!  now!" 

To  one  thing  the  supremely  afflicted  are  entitled  in 
their  sorrow,  —  to  be  obeyed ;  and  yet  it  is  the  last  kind- 
ness that  people  commonly  will  do  them.  But  Miss 
Jessamine  did.  Steadying  her  voice,  as  best  she  might, 
she  read  on;  and  the  old  soldier  stood  bareheaded  to 
hear  that  first  Roll  of  the  Dead  at  Waterloo,  which 
began  with  the  Duke  of  Brunswick  and  ended  with 
Ensign  Brown.  Five-and-thirty  British  captains  fell 
asleep  that  day  on  the  Bed  of  Honor,  and  the  Black 
Captain  slept  among  them. 

There  are  killed  and  wounded  by  war,  of  whom  no 
returns  reach  Downing  Street. 

Three  days  later,  the  Captain's  wife  had  joined  him, 
and  Miss  Jessamine  was  kneeling  by  the  cradle  of  their 
orphan  son,  a  purple-red  morsel  of  humanity,  with 
conspicuously  golden  hair. 

"Will  he  live,  Doctor?" 

"Live?  Bless  my  soul,  ma'am!  Look  at  him!  The 
young  Jackanapes!" 

II 

And  he  wandered  away  and  away 
With  Nature,  the  dear  old  Nurse. 

Longfellow. 

The  Gray  Goose  remembered  quite  well  the  year  that 
Jackanapes  began  to  walk,  for  it  was  the  year  that  the 
speckled  hen  for  the  first  time  in  all  her  motherly  life 
got  out  of  patience  when  she  was  sitting.    She  had  been 

105 


MODERN  STORIES 

rather  proud  of  the  eggs,  —  they  were  unusually  large, 
—  but  she  never  felt  quite  comfortable  on  them;  and 
whether  it  was  because  she  used  to  get  cramp  and  go 
off  the  nest,  or  because  the  season  was  bad,  or  what, 
she  never  could  tell ;  but  every  egg  was  addled  but  one, 
and  the  one  that  did  hatch  gave  her  more  trouble  than 
any  chick  she  had  ever  reared. 

It  was  a  fine,  downy,  bright  yellow  little  thing,  but 
it  had  a  monstrous  big  nose  and  feet,  and  such  an  un- 
gainly walk  as  she  knew  no  other  instance  of  in  her 
well-bred  and  high-stepping  family.  And  as  to  behav- 
ior, it  was  not  that  it  was  either  quarrelsome  or  moping, 
but  simply  unlike  the  rest.  When  the  other  chicks 
hopped  and  cheeped  on  the  Green  about  their  mother's 
feet,  this  solitary  yellow  brat  went  waddling  off  on  its 
own  responsibility,  and  do  or  cluck  what  the  speckled 
hen  would,  it  went  to  play  in  the  Pond. 

It  was  off  one  day  as  usual,  and  the  hen  was  fussing 
and  fuming  after  it,  when  the  Postman,  going  to  deliver 
a  letter  at  Miss  Jessamine's  door,  was  nearly  knocked 
over  by  the  good  lady  herself,  who,  bursting  out  of  the 
house  with  her  cap  just  off  and  her  bonnet  just  not  on, 
fell  into  his  arms,  crying,  — 

"Baby!    Baby!    Jackanapes!    Jackanapes!" 

If  the  Postman  loved  anything  on  earth,  he  loved 
the  Captain's  yellow-haired  child;  so,  propping  Miss 
Jessamine  against  her  own  doorpost,  he  followed  the 
direction  of  her  trembling  fingers  and  made  for  the 
Green. 

Jackanapes  had  had  the  start  of  the  Postman  by 
nearly  ten  minutes.     The  world  —  the  round,  green 

106 


JACKANAPES 

world  with  an  oak  tree  on  it  —  was  just  becoming  very 
interesting  to  him.  He  had  tried,  vigorously  but  in- 
effectually, to  mount  a  passing  pig  the  last  time  he  was 
taken  out  walking;  but  then  he  was  encumbered  with 
a  nurse.  Now  he  was  his  own  master,  and  might,  by 
courage  and  energy,  become  the  master  of  that  delight- 
ful downy,  dumpy,  yellow  thing  that  was  bobbing  along 
over  the  green  grass  in  front  of  him.  Forward !  Charge ! 
He  aimed  well,  and  grabbed  it,  but  only  to  feel  the 
delicious  downiness  and  dumpiness  slipping  through 
his  fingers  as  he  fell  upon  his  face.  "Quack!"  said  the 
yellow  thing,  and  wabbled  off  sideways.  It  was  this 
oblique  movement  that  enabled  Jackanapes  to  come 
up  with  it,  for  it  was  bound  for  the  Pond,  and  there- 
fore obliged  to  come  back  into  line.  He  failed  again 
from  top-heaviness,  and  his  prey  escaped  sideways  as 
before,  and,  as  before,  lost  ground  in  getting  back  to 
the  direct  road  to  the  Pond. 

And  at  the  Pond  the  Postman  found  them  both,  — 
one  yellow  thing  rocking  safely  on  the  ripples  that  lie 
beyond  duck- weed,  and  the  other  washing  his  drag- 
gled frock  with  tears  because  he  too  had  tried  to  sit 
upon  the  Pond  and  it  would  n't  hold  him. 


Ill 


If  studious,  copy  fair  what  time  hath  blurred, 
Redeem  truth  from  his  jaws;  if  soldier, 
Chase  brave  employments  with  a  naked  sword 
Throughout  the  world.    Fool  not;  for  all  may  have, 
If  they  dare  try,  a  glorious  life,  or  grave. 


107 


MODERN  STORIES 

In  brief,  acquit  thee  bravely-*  play  the  man. 
Look  not  on  pleasures  as  they  come,  but  go. 
Defer  not  the  least  virtue  :  life's  poor  span 
Make  not  an  ell,  by  trifling  in  thy  woe. 
If  thou  do  ill,  the  joy  fades,  not  the  pains. 
If  well :  the  pain  doth  fade,  the  joy  remains. 

George  Herbert. 

Young  Mrs.  Johnson,  who  was  a  mother  of  many, 
hardly  knew  which  to  pity  more,  —  Miss  Jessamine 
for  having  her  little  ways  and  her  antimacassars  rum- 
pled by  young  Jackanapes,  or  the  boy  himself  for  be- 
ing brought  up  by  an  old  maid. 

Oddly  enough  she  would  probably  have  pitied  neither, 
had  Jackanapes  been  a  girl.  (One  is  so  apt  to  think 
that  what  works  smoothest,  works  to  the  highest  ends, 
having  no  patience  for  the  results  of  friction.)  That 
Father  in  God  who  bade  the  young  men  to  be  pure  and 
the  maidens  brave,  greatly  disturbed  a  member  of  his 
congregation,  who  thought  that  the  great  preacher  had 
made  a  slip  of  the  tongue. 

"That  the  girls  should  have  purity,  and  the  boys 
courage,  is  what  you  would  say,  good  Father?" 

"Nature  has  done  that,"  was  the  reply;  "I  meant 
what  I  said." 

In  good  sooth,  a  young  maid  is  all  the  better  for 
learning  some  robuster  virtues  than  maidenliness  and 
not  to  move  the  antimacassars;  and  the  robuster  vir- 
tues require  some  fresh  air  and  freedom.  As,  on  the 
other  hand,  Jackanapes  (who  had  a  boy's  full  share 
of  the  little  beast  and  the  young  monkey  in  his  natural 
composition)  was  none  the  worse,  at  his  tender  years, 
for  learning  some  maidenliness,  —  so  far  as  maiden- 

108 


JACKANAPES 

liness  means  decency,  pity,  unselfishness,  and  pretty 
behavior. 

And  it  is  due  to  him  to  say  that  he  was  an  obedient 
boy,  and  a  boy  whose  word  could  be  depended  on,  long 
before  his  grandfather  the  General  came  to  live  at  the 
Green. 

He  was  obedient;  that  is,  he  did  what  his  great-aunt 
told  him.  But  — oh,  dear!  oh,  dear!  — the  pranks  he 
played,  which  it  had  never  entered  into  her  head  to 
forbid ! 

It  was  when  he  had  just  been  put  into  skeletons 
(frocks  never  suited  him)  that  he  became  very  friendly 
with  Master  Tony  Johnson,  a  younger  brother  of  the 
young  gentleman  who  sat  in  the  puddle  on  purpose. 
Tony  was  not  enterprising,  and  Jackanapes  led  him 
by  the  nose.  One  summer's  evening  they  were  out  late, 
and  Miss  Jessamine  was  becoming  anxious,  when  Jack- 
anapes presented  himself  with  a  ghastly  face  all  be- 
smirched with  tears.    He  was  unusually  subdued. 

"I'm  afraid,"  he  sobbed, — "if  you  please,  I'm 
very  much  afraid  that  Tony  Johnson's  dying  in  the 
churchyard." 

Miss  Jessamine  was  just  beginning  to  be  distracted, 
when  she  smelt  Jackanapes. 

"You  naughty,  naughty  boys!  Do  you  mean  to  tell 
me  that  you  've  been  smoking  ? " 

"Not  pipes,"  urged  Jackanapes;  "upon  my  honor, 
aunty,  not  pipes.  Only  cigars  like  Mr.  Johnson's!  and 
only  made  of  brown  paper  with  a  very,  very  little  to- 
bacco from  the  shop  inside  them." 

Whereupon  Miss  Jessamine  sent  a  servant  to  the 

109 


MODERN  STORIES 

churchyard,  who  found  Tony  Johnson  lying  on  a  tomb- 
stone, very  sick,  and  having  ceased  to  entertain  any 
hopes  of  his  own  recovery. 

If  it  could  be  possible  that  any  "unpleasantness" 
could  arise  between  two  such  amiable  neighbors  as 
Miss  Jessamine  and  Mrs.  Johnson,  and  if  the  still  more 
incredible  paradox  can  be  that  ladies  may  differ  over 
a  point  on  which  they  are  agreed,  that  point  was  the 
admitted  fact  that  Tony  Johnson  was  "delicate;"  and 
the  difference  lay  chiefly  in  this:  Mrs.  Johnson  said 
that  Tony  was  delicate,  — meaning  that  he  was  more 
finely  strung,  more  sensitive,  a  properer  subject  for  pam- 
pering and  petting,  than  Jackanapes,  and  that,  con- 
sequently, Jackanapes  was  to  blame  for  leading  Tony 
into  scrapes  which  resulted  in  his  being  chilled,  fright- 
ened, or  (most  frequently)  sick.  But  when  Miss  Jessa- 
mine said  that  Tony  Johnson  was  delicate,  she  meant 
that  he  was  more  puling,  less  manly,  and  less  healthily 
brought  up  than  Jackanapes,  who,  when  they  got  into 
mischief  together,  was  certainly  not  to  blame  because 
his  friend  could  not  get  wet,  sit  a  kicking  donkey,  ride 
in  the  giddy-go-round,  bear  the  noise  of  a  cracker,  or 
smoke  brown  paper  with  impunity,  as  he  could. 

Not  that  there  was  ever  the  slightest  quarrel  between 
the  ladies.  It  never  even  came  near  it,  except  the  day 
after  Tony  had  been  so  very  sick  with  riding  Bucephalus 
in  the  giddy-go-round.  Mrs.  Johnson  had  explained 
to  Miss  Jessamine  that  the  reason  Tony  was  so  easily 
upset  was  the  unusual  sensitiveness  (as  a  doctor  had 
explained  it  to  her)  of  the  nervous  centres  in  her  family 
■ —   "Fiddlestick!"    So  Mrs.  Johnson  understood  Miss 

110 


JACKANAPES 

Jessamine  to  say;  but  it  appeared  that  she  only  said 
"  Treaclestick ! "  —  which  is  quite  another  thing,  and 
of  which  Tony  was  undoubtedly  fond. 

It  was  at  the  Fair  that  Tony  was  made  ill  by  riding 
on  Bucephalus.  Once  a  year  the  Goose  Green  became 
the  scene  of  a  carnival.  First  of  all,  carts  and  caravans 
were  rumbling  up  all  along,  day  and  night.  Jackanapes 
could  hear  them  as  he  lay  in  bed,  and  could  hardly 
sleep  for  speculating  what  booths  and  whirligigs  he 
should  find  fairly  established  when  he  and  his  dog  Spit- 
fire went  out  after  breakfast.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he 
seldom  had  to  wait  so  long  for  news  of  the  Fair.  The 
Postman  knew  the  window  out  of  which  Jackanapes's 
yellow  head  would  come,  and  was  ready  with  his  report. 

"Royal  Theayter,  Master  Jackanapes,  in  the  old 
place,  but  be  careful  o'  them  seats,  sir;  they're  ricketier 
than  ever.  Two  sweets  and  a  ginger  beer  under  the 
oak  tree,  and  the  Flying  Boats  is  just  a-coming  along 
the  road." 

No  doubt  it  was  partly  because  he  had  already  suf- 
fered severely  in  the  Flying  Boats  that  Tony  collapsed 
so  quickly  in  the  giddy-go-round.  He  only  mounted 
Bucephalus  (who  was  spotted,  and  had  no  tail)  be- 
cause Jackanapes  urged  him,  and  held  out  the  ingen- 
ious hope  that  the  round-and-round  feeling  would  very 
likely  cure  the  up-and-down  sensation.  It  did  not, 
however,  and  Tony  tumbled  off  during  the  first  revo- 
lution. 

Jackanapes  was  not  absolutely  free  from  qualms; 
but  having  once  mounted  the  Black  Prince,  he  stuck 
to  him  as  a  horseman  should.    During  his  first  round 

111 


MODERN  STORIES 

he  waved  his  hat,  and  observed  with  some  concern 
that  the  Black  Prince  had  lost  an  ear  since  last  Fair; 
at  the  second,  he  looked  a  little  pale,  but  sat  upright, 
though  somewhat  unnecessarily  rigid ;  at  the  third 
round  he  shut  his  eyes.  During  the  fourth  his  hat  fell 
off,  and  he  clasped  his  horse's  neck.  By  the  fifth  he 
had  laid  his  yellow  head  against  the  Black  Prince's 
mane,  and  so  clung  anyhow  till  the  hobby-horses 
stopped,  when  the  proprietor  assisted  him  to  alight, 
and  he  sat  down  rather  suddenly  and  said  he  had 
enjoyed  it  very  much. 

The  Gray  Goose  always  ran  away  at  the  first  ap- 
proach of  the  caravans,  and  never  came  back  to  the 
Green  till  there  was  nothing  left  of  the  Fair  but  foot- 
marks and  oyster-shells.  Running  away  was  her  pet 
principle;  the  only  system,  she  maintained,  by  which 
you  can  live  long  and  easily  and  lose  nothing.  If  you 
run  away  when  you  see  danger,  you  can  come  back 
when  all  is  safe.  Run  quickly,  return  slowly,  hold  your 
head  high,  and  gabble  as  loud  as  you  can,  and  you'll 
preserve  the  respect  of  the  Goose  Green  to  a  peaceful 
old  age.  Why  should  you  struggle  and  get  hurt,  if  you 
can  lower  your  head  and  not  swerve,  and  not  lose  a 
feather?  Why  in  the  world  should  any  one  spoil  the 
pleasure  of  life,  or  risk  his  skin,  if  he  can  help  it  ? 

"'What's  the  use?' 
Said  the  Goose." 

Before  answering  which  one  might  have  to  consider 
what  world,  which  life,  and  whether  one's  skin  were  a 
goose  skin;  but  the  Gray  Goose's  head  would  never 
have  held  all  that. 

112 


JACKANAPES 

Grass  soon  grows  over  footprints,  and  the  village 
children  took  the  oyster-shells  to  trim  their  gardens 
with;  but  the  year  after  Tony  rode  Bucephalus  there 
lingered  another  relic  of  Fair  time  in  which  Jackanapes 
was  deeply  interested.  "The  Green"  proper  was  ori- 
ginally only  part  of  a  straggling  common,  which  in  its 
turn  merged  into  some  wilder  waste  land  where  Gyp- 
sies sometimes  squatted  if  the  authorities  would  allow 
them,  especially  after  the  annual  Fair.  And  it  was  after 
the  Fair  that  Jackanapes,  out  rambling  by  himself, 
was  knocked  over  by  the  Gypsy's  son  riding  the  Gypsy's 
red-haired  pony  at  breakneck  pace  across  the  common. 

Jackanapes  got  up  and  shook  himself,  none  the 
worse  except  for  being  heels  over  head  in  love  with 
the  red-haired  pony.  What  a  rate  he  went  at !  How  he 
spurned  the  ground  with  his  nimble  feet!  How  his  red 
coat  shone  in  the  sunshine!  And  what  bright  eyes 
peeped  out  of  his  dark  forelock  as  it  was  blown  by  the 
wind ! 

The  Gypsy  boy  had  had  a  fright,  and  he  was  willing 
enough  to  reward  Jackanapes  for  not  having  been  hurt, 
by  consenting  to  let  him  have  a  ride. 

"Do  you  mean  to  kill  the  little  fine  gentleman,  and 
swing  us  all  on  the  gibbet,  you  rascal  ? "  screamed  the 
Gypsy  mother,  who  came  up  just  as  Jackanapes  and 
the  pony  set  off. 

"He  would  get  on,"  replied  her  son.  "It'll  not  kill 
him.  He'll  fall  on  his  yellow  head,  and  it's  as  tough 
as  a  cocoanut." 

But  Jackanapes  did  not  fall.  He  stuck  to  the  red- 
haired  pony  as  he  had  stuck  to  the  hobby-horse;  but, 

113 


MODERN  STORIES 

oh,  how  different  the  delight  of  this  wild  gallop  with 
flesh  and  blood !  Just  as  his  legs  were  beginning  to  feel 
as  if  he  did  not  feel  them,  the  Gypsy  boy  cried,  "  Lollo ! " 
Round  went  the  pony  so  unceremoniously  that  with  as 
little  ceremony  Jackanapes  clung  to  his  neck;  and  he 
did  not  properly  recover  himself  before  Lollo  stopped 
with  a  jerk  at  the  place  where  they  had  started. 

"Is  his  name  Lollo?"  asked  Jackanapes,  his  hand 
lingering  in  the  wiry  mane. 

"Yes." 

"What  does  Lollo  mean?" 

"Red." 

"  Is  Lollo  your  pony  ?  " 

"No.  My  father's."  And  the  Gypsy  boy  led  Lollo 
away. 

At  the  first  opportunity  Jackanapes  stole  away  again 
to  the  common.  This  time  he  saw  the  Gypsy  father, 
smoking  a  dirty  pipe. 

"  Lollo  is  your  pony,  is  n't  he  ? "  said  Jackanapes. 

"Yes." 

"He's  a  very  nice  one." 

"He's  a  racer." 

"  You  don't  want  to  sell  him,  do  you  ?  " 

"Fifteen  pounds,"  said  the  Gypsy  father;  and  Jack- 
anapes sighed  and  went  home  again.  That  very  after- 
noon he  and  Tony  rode  the  two  donkeys;  and  Tony 
managed  to  get  thrown,  and  even  Jackanapes's  donkey 
kicked.  But  it  was  jolting,  clumsy  work  after  the  elas- 
tic swiftness  and  the  dainty  mischief  of  the  red-haired 
pony. 

A  few  days  later,  Miss  Jessamine  spoke  very  seri- 

114 


JACKANAPES 

ously  to  Jackanapes.  She  was  a  good  deal  agitated  as 
she  told  him  that  his  grandfather,  the  General,  was  com- 
ing to  the  Green,  and  that  he  must  be  on  his  very  best 
behavior  during  the  visit.  If  it  had  been  feasible  to 
leave  off  calling  him  Jackanapes  and  to  get  used  to  his 
baptismal  name  of  Theodore  before  the  day  after  to- 
morrow (when  the  General  was  due),  it  would  have 
been  satisfactory.  But  Miss  Jessamine  feared  it  would 
be  impossible  in  practice,  and  she  had  scruples  about 
it  on  principle.  It  would  not  seem  quite  truthful,  al- 
though she  had  always  most  fully  intended  that  he 
should  be  called  Theodore  when  he  had  outgrown  the 
ridiculous  appropriateness  of  his  nickname.  The  fact 
was  that  he  had  not  outgrown  it,  but  he  must  take  care 
to  remember  who  was  meant  when  his  grandfather  said 
Theodore.  Indeed,  for  that  matter,  he  must  take  care 
all  along. 

:'You  are  apt  to  be  giddy,  Jackanapes,"  said  Miss 
Jessamine. 

"Yes,  aunt,"  said  Jackanapes,  thinking  of  the  hobby- 
horses. 

"You  are  a  good  boy,  Jackanapes.  Thank  God, 
I  can  tell  your  grandfather  that.  An  obedient  boy,  an 
honorable  boy,  and  a  kind-hearted  boy.  But  you  are 
—  in  short,  you  are  a  Boy,  Jackanapes.  And  I  hope," 
added  Miss  Jessamine,  desperate  with  the  result  of 
experience,  "that  the  General  knows  that  Boys  will  be 
Boys." 

What  mischief  could  be  foreseen,  Jackanapes  pro- 
mised to  guard  against.  He  was  to  keep  his  clothes 
and  his  hands  clean,  to  look  over  his  catechism,  not 

115 


MODERN  STORIES 

to  put  sticky  things  in  his  pockets,  to  keep  that  hair  of 
his  smooth  ("It's  the  wind  that  blows  it,  aunty,"  said 
Jackanapes.  —  "  I  '11  send  by  the  coach  for  some  bear's- 
grease,"  said  Miss  Jessamine,  tying  a  knot  in  her 
pocket  handkerchief),  — not  to  burst  in  at  the  parlor 
door,  not  to  talk  at  the  top  of  his  voice,  not  to  crumple 
his  Sunday  frill,  and  to  sit  quite  quiet  during  the  ser- 
mon, to  be  sure  to  say  " sir"  to  the  General,  to  be  care- 
ful about  rubbing  his  shoes  on  the  door-mat,  and  to 
bring  his  lesson  books  to  his  aunt  at  once  that  she  might 
iron  down  the  dogs'-ears.  The  General  arrived;  and 
for  the  first  day  all  went  well,  except  that  Jackanapes's 
hair  was  as  wild  as  usual,  for  the  hair-dresser  had  no 
bear's-grease  left.  He  began  to  feel  more  at  ease  with 
his  grandfather,  and  disposed  to  talk  confidentially  with 
him,  as  he  did  with  the  Postman.  All  that  the  General 
felt,  it  would  take  too  long  to  tell;  but  the  result  was 
the  same.  He  was  disposed  to  talk  confidentially  with 
Jackanapes. 

"Mons'ous  pretty  place,  this,"  he  said,  looking  out 
of  the  lattice  on  to  the  Green,  where  the  grass  was 
vivid  with  sunset  and  the  shadows  were  long  and 
peaceful. 

"You  should  see  it  in  Fair  week,  sir,"  said  Jack- 
anapes, shaking  his  yellow  mop,  and  leaning  back  in  his 
one  of  the  two  Chippendale  armchairs  in  which  they  sat. 

"A  fine  time  that,  eh?"  said  the  General,  with  a 
twinkle  in  his  left  eye  (the  other  was  glass). 

Jackanapes  shook  his  hair  once  more.  "I  enjoyed 
this  last  one  the  best  of  all,"  he  said.  "I'd  so  much 
money." 

116 


JACKANAPES 

"By  George,  it's  not  a  common  complaint  in  these 
bad  times.    How  much  had  ye?" 

"I'd  two  shillings.  A  new  shilling  aunty  gave  me, 
and  elevenpence  I  had  saved  up,  and  a  penny  from  the 
Postman,  — sir!"  added  Jackanapes  with  a  jerk,  hav- 
ing forgotten  it. 

"And  how  did  ye  spend  it, — sir?"  inquired  the 
General. 

Jackanapes  spread  his  ten  fingers  on  the  arms  of  his 
chair,  and  shut  his  eyes  that  he  might  count  the  more 
conscientiously. 

"Watch-stand  for  aunty,  threepence.  Trumpet  for 
myself,  twopence;  that's  fivepence.  Gingernuts  for 
Tony,  twopence,  and  a  mug  with  a  Grenadier  on  for 
the  Postman,  fourpence;  that's  elevenpence.  Shooting- 
gallery  a  penny;  that's  a  shilling.  Giddy-go-round, 
a  penny;  that's  one  and  a  penny.  Treating  Tony,  one 
and  twopence.  Flying  Boats  (Tony  paid  for  himself), 
a  penny,  one  and  threepence.  Shooting-gallery  again, 
one  and  fourpence;  Fat  Woman  a  penny,  one  and  five- 
pence.  Giddy-go-round  again,  one  and  sixpence. 
Shooting-gallery,  one  and  sevenpence.  Treating  Tony, 
and  then  he  would  n't  shoot,  so  I  did,  one  and  eight- 
pence.  Living  Skeleton,  a  penny  —  no,  Tony  treated 
me,  the  Living  Skeleton  does  n't  count.  Skittles,  a 
penny,  one  and  ninepence.  Mermaid  (but  when  we 
got  inside  she  was  dead),  a  penny,  one  and  tenpence. 
Theatre,  a  penny  (Priscilla  Partington,  or  the  Green 
Lane  Murder.  A  beautiful  young  lady,  sir,  with  pink 
cheeks  and  a  real  pistol);  that's  one  and  elevenpence. 
Ginger  beer* a  penny  (I  was  so  thirsty!),  two  shillings 

117 


MODERN  STORIES 

And  then  the  shooting-gallery  man  gave  me  a  turn  for 
nothing,  because,  he  said,  I  was  a  real  gentleman,  and 
spent  my  money  like  a  man." 

"So  you  do,  sir,  so  you  do!"  cried  the  General. 
"  Egad,  sir,  you  spent  it  like  a  prince.  And  now  I  sup- 
pose you've  not  a  penny  in  your  pocket?" 

"Yes,  I  have,"  said  Jackanapes.  "Two  pennies. 
They  are  saving  up."  And  Jackanapes  jingled  them 
with  his  hand. 

"You  don't  want  money  except  at  Fair  times,  I 
suppose?"  said  the  General. 

Jackanapes  shook  his  mop. 

"If  I  could  have  as  much  as  I  want,  I  should  know 
what  to  buy,"  said  he. 

"  And  how  much  do  you  want,  if  you  could  get  it  ?  " 

"  Wait  a  minute,  sir,  till  I  think  what  twopence  from 
fifteen  pounds  leaves.  Two  from  nothing  you  can't, 
but  borrow  twelve.  Two  from  twelve,  ten,  and  carry 
one.  Please  remember  ten,  sir,  when  I  ask  you.  One 
from  nothing  you  can't,  borrow  twenty.  One  from 
twenty  nineteen,  and  carry  one.  One  from  fifteen,  four- 
teen. Fourteen  pounds  nineteen  and  — what  did  I  tell 
you  to  remember  ?  " 

"Ten,"  said  the  General. 

"Fourteen  pounds  nineteen  shillings  and  tenpence, 
then,  is  what  I  want,"  said  Jackanapes. 

"  God  bless  my  soul !  what  for  ?  " 

"To  buy  Lollo  with.  Lollo  means  red,  sir.  The 
Gypsy's  red-haired  pony,  sir.  Oh,  he  is  beautiful !  You 
should  see  his  coat  in  the  sunshine!  You  should  see 
his  mane !  You  should  see  his  tail !  Such  little  feet,  sir, 

118 


JACKANAPES 

and  they  go  like  lightning!  Such  a  dear  face,  too,  and 
eyes  like  a  mouse!  But  he's  a  racer,  and  the  Gypsy 
wants  fifteen  pounds  for  him." 

"  If  he 's  a  racer  you  could  n't  ride  him.  Could  you  ?  " 

"No — o,  sir,  but  I  can  stick  to  him.  I  did  the  other 
day." 

"  The  dooce  you  did !  Well,  I  'm  fond  of  riding  my- 
self; and  if  the  beast  is  as  good  as  you  say,  he  might 
suit  me." 

"  You  're  too  tall  for  Lollo,  I  think,"  said  Jackanapes, 
measuring  his  grandfather  with  his  eye. 

"I  can  double  up  my  legs,  I  suppose.  We'll  have 
a  look  at  him  to-morrow." 

"  Don't  you  weigh  a  good  deal  ?  "  asked  Jackanapes. 

"Chiefly  waistcoats,"  said  the  General,  slapping  the 
breast  of  his  military  frock  coat.  "We'll  have  the 
little  racer  on  the  Green  the  first  thing  in  the  morning. 
Glad  you  mentioned  it,  grandson;  glad  you  mentioned 
it." 

The  General  was  as  good  as  his  word.  Next  morn- 
ing the  Gypsy  and  Lollo,  Miss  Jessamine,  Jackanapes 
and  his  grandfather,  and  his  dog  Spitfire,  were  all 
gathered  at  one  end  of  the  Green  in  a  group,  which  so 
aroused  the  innocent  curiosity  of  Mrs.  Johnson,  as  she 
saw  it  from  one  of  her  upper  windows,  that  she  and  the 
children  took  their  early  promenade  rather  earlier  than 
usual.  The  General  talked  to  the  Gypsy,  and  Jacka- 
napes fondled  Lollo's  mane,  and  did  not  know  whether 
he  should  be  more  glad  or  miserable  if  his  grandfather 
bought  him. 

"  Jackanapes ! " 

119 


MODERN   STORIES 

"Yes,  sir!" 

"I've  bought  Lollo,  but  I  believe  you  were  right. 
He  hardly  stands  high  enough  for  me.  If  you  can  ride 
him  to  the  other  end  of  the  Green,  I'll  give  him  to 
you." 

How  Jackanapes  tumbled  on  to  Lollo's  back  he  never 
knew.  He  had  just  gathered  up  the  reins  when  the 
Gypsy  father  took  him  by  the  arm. 

"If  you  want  to  make  Lollo  go  fast,  my  little  gen- 
tleman" — 

"I  can  make  him  go!"  said  Jackanapes;  and  draw- 
ing from  his  pocket  the  trumpet  he  had  bought  in  the 
Fair,  he  blew  a  blast  both  loud  and  shrill. 

Away  went  Lollo,  and  away  went  Jackanapes's  hat. 
His  golden  hair  flew  out,  an  aureole  from  which  his 
cheeks  shone  red  and  distended  with  trumpeting. 
Away  went  Spitfire,  mad  with  the  rapture  of  the  race 
and  the  wind  in  his  silky  ears.  Away  went  the  geese, 
the  cocks,  the  hens,  and  the  whole  family  of  Johnson. 
Lucy  clung  to  her  mamma,  Jane  saved  Emily  by  the 
gathers  of  her  gown,  and  Tony  saved  himself  by  a 
somersault. 

The  Gray  Goose  was  just  returning  when  Jacka- 
napes and  Lollo   rode  back,  Spitfire  panting  behind. 

"  Good,  my  little  gentleman,  good ! "  said  the  Gypsy. 
"You  were  born  to  the  saddle.  You've  the  flat  thigh, 
the  strong  knee,  the  wiry  back,  and  the  light  caressing 
hand;  all  you  want  is  to  learn  the  whisper.  Come 
here!" 

"What  was  that  dirty  fellow  talking  about,  grand- 
son?" asked  the  General. 

120 


JACKANAPES 

"I  can't  tell  you,  sir.    It's  a  secret." 

The  two  were  sitting  in  the  window  again,  in  the 
Chippendale  armchairs,  the  General  devouring  every 
line  of  his  grandson's  face,  with  strange  spasms  crossing 
his  own. 

"  You  must  love  your  aunt  very  much,  Jackanapes  ?  " 

"I  do,  sir,"  said  Jackanapes  warmly. 

"And  whom  do  you  love  next  best  to  your  aunt?" 

The  ties  of  blood  were  pressing  very  strongly  on  the 
General  himself,  and  perhaps  he  thought  of  Lollo.  But 
love  is  not  bought  in  a  day,  even  with  fourteen  pounds, 
nineteen  shillings  and  tenpence.  Jackanapes  answered 
quite  readily,  "The  Postman." 

"Why  the  Postman?" 

"He  knew  my  father,"  saic.  Jackanapes,  "and  he 
tells  me  about  him  and  about  his  black  mare.  My  fa- 
ther was  a  soldier,  a  brave  soldier.  He  died  at  Waterloo. 
When  I  grow  up  I  want  to  be  a  soldier,  too." 

"So  you  shall,  my  boy;  so  you  shall  " 

"  Thank  you,  grandfather.  Aunty  does  n't  want  me  to 
be  a  soldier,  for  fear  of  being  killed." 

"  Bless  my  life !  Would  she  have  you  get  into  a  feather- 
bed and  stay  there?  Why,  you  might  be  killed  by  a 
thunderbolt  if  you  were  a  butter  merchant ! " 

"  So  I  might.  I  shall  tell  her  so.  What  a  funny  fel- 
low you  are,  sir!  I  say,  do  you  think  my  father  knew 
the  Gypsy's  secret  ?  The  Postman  says  he  used  to  whis- 
per to  his  black  mare." 

"Your  father  was  taught  to  ride,  as  a  child,  by  one 
of  those  horsemen  of  the  East  who  swoop  and  dart  and 
wheel  about  a  plain  like  swallows  in  autumn.    Grand- 

121 


MODERN  STORIES 

son!  love  me  a  little,  too.    I  can  tell  you  more  about 
your  father  than  the  Postman  can." 

"I  do  love  you,"  said  Jackanapes.  "Before  you 
came  I  was  frightened.  I  'd  no  notion  you  were  so  nice." 

"Love  me  always,  boy,  whatever  I  do  or  leave  un- 
done. And  —  God  help  me !  —  whatever  you  do  or 
leave  undone,  I'll  love  you.  There  shall  never  be  a 
cloud  between  us  for  a  day;  no,  sir,  not  for  an  hour. 
We  're  imperfect  enough,  all  of  us  —  we  need  n't  be 
so  bitter;  and  life  is  uncertain  enough  at  its  safest  — 
we  need  n't  waste  its  opportunities.  God  bless  my  soul! 
Here  sit  I,  after  a  dozen  battles  and  some  of  the  worst 
climates  in  the  world,  and  by  yonder  lych  gate  lies  your 
mother,  who  did  n't  move  five  miles,  I  suppose,  from 
your  aunt's  apron-strings,  — dead  in  her  teens;  my 
golden-haired  daughter,  whom  I  never  saw!" 

Jackanapes  was  terribly  troubled. 

"Don't  cry,  grandfather,"  he  pleaded,  his  own  blue 
eyes  round  with  tears.  "  I  will  love  you  very  much,  and 
I  will  try  to  be  very  good.  But  I  should  like  to  be  a 
soldier." 

"You  shall,  my  boy;  you  shall.  You've  more  claims 
for  a  commission  than  you  know  of.  Cavalry,  I  sup- 
pose; eh,  ye  young  Jackanapes?  Well,  well;  if  you 
live  to  be  an  honor  to  your  country,  this  old  heart  shall 
grow  young  again  with  pride  for  you;  and  if  you  die 
in  the  service  of  your  country  —  egad,  sir,  it  can  but 
break  for  ye!" 

And  beating  the  region  which  he  said  was  all  waist- 
coats, as  if  they  stifled  him,  the  old  man  got  up  and 
strode  out  on  to  the  Green. 

122 


JACKANAPES 


IV 


Greater  love  hath  no  man  than  this,  that  a  man  lay  down  his  life 
for  his  friends.  —  John  xv,  13. 

Twenty  and  odd  years  later  the  Gray  Goose  was 
still  alive,  and  in  full  possession  of  her  faculties,  such 
as  they  were.  She  lived  slowly  and  carefully,  and  she 
lived  long.  So  did  Miss  Jessamine;  but  the  General 
was  dead. 

He  had  lived  on  the  Green  for  many  years,  during 
which  he  and  the  Postman  saluted  each  other  with  a 
punctiliousness  that  it  almost  drilled  one  to  witness. 
He  would  have  completely  spoiled  Jackanapes  if  Miss 
Jessamine's  conscience  would  have  let  him;  otherwise 
he  somewhat  dragooned  his  neighbors,  and  was  as 
positive  about  parish  matters  as  a  ratepayer  about  the 
army; — a  stormy- tempered,  tender-hearted  soldier, 
irritable  with  the  suffering  of  the  wounds  of  which  he 
never  spoke,  whom  all  the  village  followed  to  his  grave 
with  tears. 

The  General's  death  was  a  great  shock  to  Miss  Jes- 
samine, and  her  nephew  stayed  with  her  for  some  little 
time  after  the  funeral.  Then  he  was  obliged  to  join  his 
regiment,  which  was  ordered  abroad. 

One  effect  of  the  conquest  which  the  General  had 
gained  over  the  affections  of  the  village  was  a  consid- 
erable abatement  of  the  popular  prejudice  against  "  the 
military."  Indeed,  the  village  was  now  somewhat  im- 
portantly represented  in  the  army.  There  was  the  Gen- 
eral himself,  and  the  Postman,  and  the  Black  Captain's 

123 


MODERN  STORIES 

tablet  in  the  church,  and  Jackanapes,  and  Tony  John- 
son, and  a  Trumpeter. 

Tony  Johnson  had  no  more  natural  taste  for  fighting 
than  for  riding,  but  he  was  as  devoted  as  ever  to  Jack- 
anapes. And  that  was  how  it  came  about  that  Mr. 
Johnson  bought  him  a  commission  in  the  same  cavalry 
regiment  that  the  General's  grandson  (whose  commis- 
sion had  been  given  him  by  the  Iron  Duke)  was  in; 
and  that  he  was  quite  content  to  be  the  butt  of  the  mess 
where  Jackanapes  was  the  hero;  and  that  when  Jack- 
anapes wrote  home  to  Miss  Jessamine,  Tony  wrote  with 
the  same  purpose  to  his  mother,  — namely,  to  demand 
her  congratulations  that  they  were  on  active  service  at 
last,  and  were  ordered  to  the  front.  And  he  added  a 
postscript,  to  the  effect  that  she  could  have  no  idea 
how  popular  Jackanapes  was,  nor  how  splendidly  he 
rode  the  wonderful  red  charger  which  he  had  named 
after  his  old  friend  Lollo. 

"Sound 'Retire!'" 

A  Boy  Trumpeter,  grave  with  the  weight  of  respon- 
sibilities and  accoutrements  beyond  his  years,  and 
stained  so  that  his  own  mother  would  not  have  known 
him,  with  the  sweat  and  dust  of  battle,  did  as  he  was 
bid;  and  then,  pushing  his  trumpet  pettishly  aside, 
adjusted  his  weary  legs  for  the  hundredth  time  to  the 
horse  which  was  a  world  too  big  for  him  and  mutter- 
ing, " '  T  ain't  a  pretty  tune,"  tried  to  see  something  of 
this  his  first  engagement  before  it  came  to  an  end. 

Being  literally  in  the  thick  of  it,  he  could  hardly  have 
seen  less  or  known  less  of  what  happened  in  that  par- 

124 


JACKANAPES 

ticular  skirmish  if  he  had  been  at  home  in  England: 
for  many  good  reasons,  — including  dust  and  smoke, 
and  that  what  attention  he  dared  distract  from  his  com- 
manding officer  was  pretty  well  absorbed  by  keeping 
his  hard-mouthed  troop-horse  in  hand,  under  pain  of 
execration  by  his  neighbors  in  the  melee.  By  and  by, 
when  the  newspapers  came  out,  if  he  could  get  a  look 
at  one  before  it  was  thumbed  to  bits,  he  would  learn 
that  the  enemy  had  appeared  from  ambush  in  over- 
whelming numbers,  and  that  orders  had  been  given 
to  fall  back,  which  was  done  slowly  and  in  good  order, 
the  men  fighting  as  they  retired. 

Born  and  bred  on  the  Goose  Green,  the  youngest 
of  Mr.  Johnson's  gardener's  numerous  offspring,  the 
boy  had  given  his  family  "no  peace"  till  they  let  him 
"  go  for  a  soldier  "  with  Master  Tony  and  Master  Jack- 
anapes. They  consented  at  last,  with  more  tears  than 
they  shed  when  an  elder  son  was  sent  to  jail  for  poach- 
ing; and  the  boy  was  perfectly  happy  in  his  life,  and 
full  of  esprit  de  corps.  It  was  this  which  had  been 
wounded  by  having  to  sound  retreat  for  "the  young 
gentlemen's  regiment,"  the  first  time  he  served  with  it 
before  the  enemy;  and  he  was  also  harassed  by  having 
completely  lost  sight  of  Master  Tony.  There  had  been 
some  hard  fighting  before  the  backward  movement 
began,  and  he  had  caught  sight  of  him  once,  but  not 
since.  On  the  other  hand,  all  the  pulses  of  his  village 
pride  had  been  stirred  by  one  or  two  visions  of  Master 
Jackanapes  whirling  about  on  his  wonderful  horse. 
He  had  been  easy  to  distinguish,  since  an  eccentric 
blow  had  bared  his  head  without  hurting  it;  for  his 

125 


MODERN  STORIES 

close  golden  mop  of  hair  gleamed  in  the  hot  sunshine 
as  brightly  as  the  steel  of  the  sword  flashing  round  it. 

Of  the  missiles  that  fell  pretty  thickly,  the  Boy  Trum- 
peter did  not  take  much  notice.  First,  one  can't  attend 
to  everything,  and  his  hands  were  full;  secondly,  one 
gets  used  to  anything;  thirdly,  experience  soon  teaches 
one,  in  spite  of  proverbs,  how  very  few  bullets  find 
their  billet.  Far  more  unnerving  is  the  mere  suspicion 
of  fear  or  even  of  anxiety  in  the  human  mass  around 
you.  The  Boy  was  beginning  to  wonder  if  there  were 
any  dark  reason  for  the  increasing  pressure,  and  whether 
they  would  be  allowed  to  move  back  more  quickly, 
when  the  smoke  in  front  lifted  for  a  moment,  and  he 
could  see  the  plain,  and  the  enemy's  line  some  two 
hundred  yards  away.  And  across  the  plain  between 
them,  he  saw  Master  Jackanapes  galloping  along  at 
the  top  of  Lollo's  speed,  their  faces  to  the  enemy,  his 
golden  head  at  Lollo's  ear.  But  at  this  moment  noise 
and  smoke  seemed  to  burst  out  on  every  side;  the  officer 
shouted  to  him  to  sound  "Retire!"  and  between 
trumpeting  and  bumping  about  on  his  horse,  he  saw 
and  heard  no  more  of  the  incidents  of  his  first  battle. 

Tony  Johnson  was  always  unlucky  with  horses, 
from  the  days  of  the  giddy-go-round  onwards.  On  this 
day  —  of  all  days  in  the  year  —  his  own  horse  was  on 
the  sick  list,  and  he  had  to  ride  an  inferior,  ill-condi- 
tioned beast,  and  fell  off  that,  at  the  very  moment  when 
it  was  a  matter  of  life  and  death  to  be  able  to  ride  away. 
The  horse  fell  on  him,  but  struggled  up  again,  and 
Tony  managed  to  keep  hold  of  it.  It  was  in  trying  to 
remount  that  he  discovered,  by  helplessness  and  anguish, 

126 


JACKANAPES 

that  one  of  his  legs  was  crushed  and  broken,  and  that 
no  feat  of  which  he  was  master  would  get  him  into  the 
saddle.  Not  able  even  to  stand  alone,  awkwardly, 
agonizingly,  unable  to  mount  his  restive  horse,  his  life 
was  yet  so  strong  within  him!  And  on  one  side  of  him 
rolled  the  dust  and  cloud-smoke  of  his  advancing  foes, 
and  on  the  other,  that  which  covered  his  retreating 
friends. 

He  turned  one  piteous  gaze  after  them,  with  a  bit- 
ter twinge,  not  of  reproach,  but  of  loneliness;  and  then, 
dragging  himself  up  by  the  side  of  his  horse,  he  turned 
the  other  way  and  drew  out  his  pistol,  and  waited  for 
the  end.  Whether  he  waited  seconds  or  minutes  he 
never  knew,  before  some  one  gripped  him  by  the  arm. 

"Jackanapes!  God  bless  you!  It's  my  left  leg.  If 
you  could  get  me  on  "  — 

It  was  like  Tony's  luck  that  his  pistol  went  off  at  his 
horse's  tail,  and  made  it  plunge;  but  Jackanapes  threw 
him  across  the  saddle. 

"Hold  on  anyhow,  and  stick  your  spur  in.  I'll  lead 
him.    Keep  your  head  down;  they're  firing  high." 

And  Jackanapes  laid  his  head  down  —  to  Lollo's  ear. 

It  was  when  they  were  fairly  off  that  a  sudden  up- 
springing  of  the  enemy  in  all  directions  had  made  it 
necessary  to  change  the  gradual  retirement  of  our  force 
into  as  rapid  a  retreat  as  possible.  And  when  Jacka- 
napes became  aware  of  this,  and  felt  the  lagging  and 
swerving  of  Tony's  horse,  he  began  to  wish  he  had 
thrown  his  friend  across  his  own  saddle  and  left  their 
lives  to  Lollo. 

When  Tony  became  aware  of  it,  several  things  came 

127 


MODERN  STORIES 

into  his  head :  First,  that  the  dangers  of  their  ride  for 
life  were  now  more  than  doubled ;  second,  that  if  Jack- 
anapes and  Lollo  were  not  burdened  with  him  they 
would  undoubtedly  escape;  third,  that  Jackanapes's  life 
was  infinitely  valuable,  and  his — Tony's — was  not; 
fourth,  that  this,  if  he  could  seize  it,  was  the  supremest 
of  all  the  moments  in  which  he  had  tried  to  assume 
the  virtues  which  Jackanapes  had  by  nature;  and  that 
if  he  could  be  courageous  and  unselfish  now  — 

He  caught  at  his  own  reins  and  spoke  very  loud,  — 
"Jackanapes!  It  won't  do.  You  and  Lollo  must  go 
on.  Tell  the  fellows  I  gave  you  back  to  them  with  all 
my  heart.     Jackanapes,  if  you  love  me,  leave  me  ! " 

There  was  a  daffodil  light  over  the  evening  sky  in 
front  of  them,  and  it  shone  strangely  on  Jackanapes's 
hair  and  face.  He  turned  with  an  odd  look  in  his  eyes 
that  a  vainer  man  than  Tony  Johnson  might  have  taken 
for  brotherly  pride.  Then  he  shook  his  mop,  and  laughed 
at  him. 

"  Leave  you  ?  To  save  my  skin  ?  No,  Tony,  not  to 
save  my  soul!" 

V 

Mr.  Valiant  summoned.    His  Will.    His  Last  Words. 

Then  said  he,  "I  am  going  to  my  Fathers.  .  .  .  My  Sword  I  give 
to  him  that  shall  succeed  me  in  my  pilgrimage,  and  my  Courage  and 
Skill  to  him  that  can  get  it."  .  .  .  And  as  he  went  down  deeper,  he 
said,  "Grave,  where  is  thy  Victory?" 

So  he  passed  over,  and  all  the  Trumpets  sounded  for  him  on  the 
other  side.  Bunyan  :  Pilgrim's  Progress. 

Coming  out  of  a  hospital  tent,  at  headquarters,  the 
surgeon  caromed   against,   and   rebounded  from,   an- 

128 


JACKANAPES 

other  officer,  — a  sallow  man,  not  young,  with  a  face 
worn  more  by  ungentle  experiences  than  by  age,  with 
weary  eyes  that  kept  their  own  counsel,  iron-gray  hair, 
and  a  mustache  that  was  as  if  a  raven  had  laid  its  wing 
across  his  lips  and  sealed  them. 

"Well?" 

"  Beg  pardon,  Major.  Did  n't  see  you.  Oh,  com- 
pound fracture  and  bruises.  But  it's  all  right;  he'll 
pull  through." 

"Thank  God." 

It  was  probably  an  involuntary  expression ;  for 
prayer  and  praise  were  not  much  in  the  Major's  line, 
as  a  jerk  of  the  surgeon's  head  would  have  betrayed 
to  an  observer.  He  was  a  bright  little  man,  with  his 
feelings  showing  all  over  him,  but  with  gallantry  and 
contempt  of  death  enough  for  both  sides  of  his  pro- 
fession; who  took  a  cool  head,  a  white  handkerchief, 
and  a  case  of  instruments,  where  other  men  went  hot- 
blooded  with  weapons,  and  who  was  the  biggest  gos- 
sip, male  or  female,  of  the  regiment.  Not  even  the 
Major's  taciturnity  daunted  him. 

"  Did  n't  think  he  'd  as  much  pluck  about  him  as  he 
has.  He  '11  do  all  right  if  he  does  n't  fret  himself  into 
a  fever  about  poor  Jackanapes." 

"Whom  are  you  talking  about?"  asked  the  Major 
hoarsely. 

"Young  Johnson.    He"  — 

"  What  about  Jackanapes  ? " 

"Don't  you  know?  Sad  business.  Rode  back  for 
Johnson  and  brought  him  in;  but,  monstrous  ill  luck, 
hit  as  they  rode.    Left  lung"  — 

129 


MODERN  STORIES 

"Will  he  recover?" 

"  No.  Sad  business.  What  a  frame  —  what  limbs 
—  what  health  —  and  what  good  looks !  Finest  young 
fellow  " — 

"Where  is  he?" 

"In  his  own  tent,"  said  the  surgeon  sadly. 

The  Major  wheeled  and  left  him. 

"  Can  I  do  anything  else  for  you  ?  " 

"Nothing,  thank  you.  Except —  Major!  I  wish 
I  could  get  you  to  appreciate  Johnson." 

"This  is  not  an  easy  moment,  Jackanapes." 

"  Let  me  tell  you,  sir,  —  he  never  will,  —  that  if  he 
could  have  driven  me  from  him,  he  would  be  lying  yon- 
der at  this  moment,  and  I  should  be  safe  and  sound." 

The  Major  laid  his  hand  over  his  mouth,  as  if  to 
keep  back  a  wish  he  would  have  been  ashamed  to 
utter. 

"I've  known  old  Tony  from  a  child.  He's  a  fool 
on  impulse,  a  good  man  and  a  gentleman  in  principle. 
And  he  acts  on  principle,  which  it 's  not  every  —  Some 
water,  please!  Thank  you,  sir.  It's  very  hot,  and  yet 
one's  feet  get  uncommonly  cold.  Oh,  thank  you,  thank 
you.  He's  no  fire-eater,  but  he  has  a  trained  conscience 
and  a  tender  heart,  and  he  '11  do  his  duty  when  a  braver 
and  more  selfish  man  might  fail  you.  But  he  wants  en- 
couragement; and  when  I'm  gone"  — 

"  He  shall  have  encouragement.  You  have  my  word 
for  it.    Can  I  do  nothing  else  ?  " 

"Yes,  Major.    A  favor." 

"Thank  you,  Jackanapes." 

130 


JACKANAPES 

"  Be  Lollo's  master,  and  love  him  as  well  as  you  can- 
He  's  used  to  it." 

"  Would  n't  you  rather  Johnson  had  him  ?  " 

The  blue  eyes  twinkled  in  spite  of  mortal  pain. 

"Tony  rides  on  principle,  Major.  His  legs  are  bol- 
sters, and  will  be  to  the  end  of  the  chapter.  I  could  n't 
insult  dear  Lollo;  but  if  you  don't  care"  — 

"  While  I  live  —  which  will  be  longer  than  I  desire 
or  deserve  —  Lollo  shall  want  nothing  but  —  you.  I 
liave  too  little  tenderness  for  —  My  dear  boy,  you  're 
faint.    Can  you  spare  me  for  a  moment?" 

"No,  stay—   Major!" 

""What?    What?" 

"My  head  drifts  so  — if  you  would  n't  mind." 

"Yes!    Yes!" 

"Say  a  prayer  by  me.  Out  loud,  please;  I  am  get- 
ting deaf." 

"  My  dearest  Jackanapes  —  my  dear  boy  "  — 

"  One  of  the  Church  Prayers  —  Parade  Service, 
you  know"  — 

"  I  see.  But  the  fact  is  —  God  forgive  me,  Jacka- 
napes !  —  I  'm  a  very  different  sort  of  fellow  from  some 
of  you  youngsters.    Look  here,  let  me  fetch"  — 

But  Jackanapes's  hand  was  in  his,  and  it  would  not 
let  go. 

There  was  a  brief  and  bitter  silence. 

"  'Pon  my  soul,  I  can  only  remember  the  little  one 
at  the  end." 

"Please,"  whispered  Jackanapes. 

Pressed  by  the  conviction  that  what  little  he  could 
do  it  was  his  duty  to  do,  the  Major,  kneeling,  bared 

131 


MODERN  STORIES 

his  head,  and  spoke  loudly,  clearly,  and  very  rever- 
ently, — 

"The  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ"  — 

Jackanapes  moved  his  left  hand  to  his  right  one, 
which  still  held  the  Major's  — 

"The  love  of  God"  — 

And  with  that  —  Jackanapes  died. 

VI 

Und  so  ist  der  blaue  Himmel  grosser  als  jedes  Gewolk  darin,  und 
dauerhafter  dazu.1 

Jean  Paul  Richter. 

Jackanapes's  death  was  sad  news  for  the  Goose 
Green,  a  sorrow  just  qualified  by  honorable  pride  in  his 
gallantry  and  devotion.  Only  the  Cobbler  dissented; 
but  that  was  his  way.  He  said  he  saw  nothing  in  it  but 
foolhardiness  and  vainglory.  They  might  both  have 
been  killed,  as  easy  as  not;  and  then  where  would  ye 
have  been  ?  A  man's  life  was  a  man's  life,  and  one 
life  was  as  good  as  another.  No  one  would  catch  him 
throwing  his  away.  And,  for  that  matter,  Mrs.  John- 
son could  spare  a  child  a  great  deal  better  than  Miss 
Jessamine. 

But  the  parson  preached  Jackanapes's  funeral  ser- 
mon on  the  text,  "Whosoever  will  save  his  life  shall 
lose  it,  and  whosoever  will  lose  his  life  for  my  sake  shall 
find  it;"  and  all  the  village  went  and  wept  to  hear  him. 

Nor  did  Miss  Jessamine  see  her  loss  from  the  Cob- 
bler's point  of  view.    On  the  contrary,  Mrs.  Johnson 

1  "And  so  the  blue  sky  is  greater  than  any  cloud  therein,  and  more 
enduring  too.'5 

132 


JACKANAPES 

said  she  never  to  her  dying  day  should  forget  how, 
when  she  went  to  condole  with  her,  the  old  lady  came 
forward,  with  gentlewomanly  self-control,  and  kissed 
her,  and  thanked  God  that  her  dear  nephew's  effort 
had  been  blessed  with  success,  and  that  this  sad  war  had 
made  no  gap  in  her  friend's  large  and  happy  home 
circle. 

"But  she's  a  noble  unselfish  woman,"  sobbed  Mrs. 
Johnson,  "and  she  taught  Jackanapes  to  be  the  same; 
and  that's  how  it  is  that  my  Tony  has  been  spared  to 
me.  And  it  must  be  sheer  goodness  in  Miss  Jessamine, 
for  what  can  she  know  of  a  mother's  feelings?  And 
I'm  sure  most  people  seem  to  think  that  if  you've  a 
large  family  you  don't  know  one  from  another  any  more 
than  they  do,  and  that  a  lot  of  children  are  like  a  lot 
of  store  apples,  — if  one's  taken  it  won't  be  missed." 

Lollo,  —  the  first  Lollo,  the  Gypsy's  Lollo,  —  very 
aged,  draws  Miss  Jessamine's  bath-chair  slowly  up  and 
down  the  Goose  Green  in  the  sunshine. 

The  ex-Postman  walks  beside  him,  which  Lollo  tol- 
erates to  the  level  of  his  shoulder.  If  the  Postman  ad- 
vances any  nearer  to  his  head,  Lollo  quickens  his  pace; 
and  were  the  Postman  to  persist  in  the  injudicious  at- 
tempt, there  is,  as  Miss  Jessamine  says,  no  knowing 
what  might  happen. 

In  the  opinion  of  the  Goose  Green,  Miss  Jessamine 
has  borne  her  troubles  "wonderfully."  Indeed,  to-day, 
some  of  the  less  delicate  and  less  intimate  of  those  who 
see  everything  from  the  upper  windows  say  (well,  be- 
hind her  back)  that  "the  old  lady  seems  quite  lively 
with  her  military  beaux  again." 

133 


MODERN  STORIES 

The  meaning  of  this  is,  that  Captain  Johnson  is  lean- 
ing over  one  side  of  her  chair,  while  by  the  other  bends 
a  brother  officer  who  is  staying  with  him,  and  who  has 
manifested  an  extraordinary  interest  in  Lollo. 

He  bends  lower  and  lower,  and  Miss  Jessamine  calls 
to  the  Postman  to  request  Lollo  to  be  kind  enough  to 
stop,  while  she  is  fumbling  for  something  which  always 
hangs  by  her  side,  and  has  got  entangled  with  her 
spectacles. 

It  is  a  twopenny  trumpet,  bought  years  ago  in  the 
village  fair;  and  over  it  she  and  Captain  Johnson  tell, 
as  best  they  can,  between  them,  the  story  of '  Jacka- 
napes's ride  across  Goose  Green ;  and  how  he  won  Lollo 
—  the  Gypsy's  Lollo  —  the  racer  Lollo  —  dear  Lollo  — 
faithful  Lollo  —  Lollo,  the  never  vanquished  —  Lollo, 
the  tender  servant  of  his  old  mistress.  And  Lollo's  ears 
twitch  at  every  mention  of  his  name. 

Their  hearer  does  not  speak,  but  he  never  moves 
his  eyes  from  the  trumpet;  and  when  the  tale  is  told, 
he  lifts  Miss  Jessamine's  hand  and  presses  his  heavy 
black  mustache  in  silence  to  her  trembling  fingers. 

The  sun,  setting  gently  to  his  rest,  embroiders  the 
sombre  foliage  of  the  oak  tree  with  threads  of  gold. 
The  Gray  Goose  is  sensible  of  an  atmosphere  of  repose, 
and  puts  up  one  leg  for  the  night.  The  grass  glows  with 
a  more  vivid  green,  and,  in  answer  to  a  ringing  call 
from  Tony,  his  sisters,  fluttering  over  the  daisies  in  pale- 
hued  muslins,  come  out  of  their  ever-open  door,  like 
pretty  pigeons  from  a  dovecote. 

And  if  the  good  gossips'  eyes  do  not  deceive  them, 
all  the  Miss  Johnsons  and  both  the  officers  go  wander- 

134 


JACKANAPES 

ing  off  into  the  lanes,  where  bryony  wreaths  still  twine 
about  the  brambles. 

A  sorrowful  story,  and  ending  badly? 

Nay,  Jackanapes,  for  the  end  is  not  yet. 

A  life  wasted  that  might  have  been  useful  ? 

Men  who  have  died  for  men,  in  all  ages,  forgive  the 
thought ! 

There  is  a  heritage  of  heroic  example  and  noble  ob- 
ligation, not  reckoned  in  the  Wealth  of  Nations,  but 
essential  to  a  nation's  life;  the  contempt  of  which,  in 
any  people,  may,  not  slowly,  mean  even  its  commercial 
fall. 

Very  sweet  are  the  uses  of  prosperity,  the  harvests 
of  peace  and  progress,  the  fostering  sunshine  of  health 
and  happiness,  and  length  of  days  in  the  land. 

But  there  be  things,  —  oh,  sons  of  what  has  deserved 
the  name  of  Great  Britain,  forget  it  not !  "  the  good 
of"  which  and  "the  use  of"  which  are  beyond  all  cal- 
culation of  worldly  goods  and  earthly  uses :  things  such 
as  Love,  and  Honor,  and  the  Soul  of  Man,  which  can- 
not be  bought  with  a  price,  and  which  do  not  die  with 
death.  And  they  who  would  fain  live  happily  ever  after 
should  not  leave  these  things  out  of  the  lessons  of  their 
lives. 


A   DOG   OF   FLANDERS 

By  Louise  de  la  Ramee  ("  Ouida  ") 

I 

NELLO  and  Patrasche  were  left  all  alone  in  the 
world. 

They  were  friends  in  a  friendship  closer  than  bro- 
therhood. Nello  was  a  little  Ardennois,  — Patrasche 
was  a  big  Fleming.  They  were  both  of  the  same  age 
by  length  of  years,  yet  one  was  still  young,  and  the  other 
was  already  old.  They  had  dwelt  together  almost  all 
their  days ;  both  were  orphaned  and  destitute,  and  owed 
their  lives  to  the  same  hand.  It  had  been  the  beginning 
of  the  tie  between  them,  their  first  bond  of  sympathy; 
and  it  had  strengthened  day  by  day,  and  had  grown 
with  their  growth,  firm  and  indissoluble,  until  they 
loved  one  another  very  greatly. 

Their  home  was  a  little  hut  on  the  edge  of  a  little 
village,  — a  Flemish  village  a  league  from  Antwerp, 
set  amidst  flat  breadths  of  pasture  and  corn-lands,  with 
long  lines  of  poplars  and  of  alders  bending  in  the  breeze 
on  the  edge  of  the  great  canal  which  ran  through  it. 
It  had  about  a  score  of  houses  and  homesteads,  with 
shutters  of  bright  green  or  sky-blue,  and  roofs  rose-red 
or  black  and  white,  and  walls  whitewashed  until  they 
shone  in  the  sun  like  snow.  In  the  centre  of  the  village 
stood  a  windmill,  placed  on  a  little  moss-grown  slope; 

136 


A  DOG  OF  FLANDERS 

it  was  a  landmark  to  all  the  level  country  round.  It  had 
once  been  painted  scarlet,  sails  and  all,  but  that  had 
been  in  its  infancy,  half  a  century  or  more  earlier,  when 
it  had  ground  wheat  for  the  soldiers  of  Napoleon;  and 
it  was  now  a  ruddy  brown,  tanned  by  wind  and  weather. 
It  went  queerly  by  fits  and  starts,  as  though  rheumatic 
and  stiff  in  the  joints  from  age,  but  it  served  the  whole 
neighborhood,  which  would  have  thought  it  almost  as 
impious  to  carry  grain  elsewhere,  as  to  attend  any  other 
religious  service  than  the  mass  that  was  performed  at 
the  altar  of  the  little  old  gray  church,  with  its  conical 
steeple,  which  stood  opposite  to  it,  and  whose  single 
bell  rang  morning,  noon,  and  night  with  that  strange, 
subdued,  hollow  sadness  which  every  bell  that  hangs 
in  the  Low  Countries  seems  to  gain  as  an  integral  part 
of  its  melody. 

Within  sound  of  the  little  melancholy  clock,  almost 
from  their  birth  upward,  they  had  dwelt  together,  Nello 
and  Patrasche,  in  the  little  hut  on  the  edge  of  the  vil- 
lage, with  the  cathedral  spire  of  Antwerp  rising  in  the 
northeast,  beyond  the  great  green  plain  of  seeding 
grass  and  spreading  corn  that  stretched  away  from 
them  like  a  tideless,  changeless  sea.  It  was  the  hut  of 
a  very  old  man,  of  a  very  poor  man,  — of  old  Jehan 
Daas,  who  in  his  time  had  been  a  soldier,  and  who  re- 
membered the  wars  that  had  trampled  the  country  as 
oxen  tread  down  the  furrows,  and  who  had  brought 
from  his  service  nothing  except  a  wound,  which  had 
made  him  a  cripple. 

When  old  Jehan  Daas  had  reached  his  full  eighty, 
his  daughter  had  died  in  the  Ardennes,  hard  by  Stave- 

137 


MODERN   STORIES 

lot,  and  had  left  him  in  legacy  her  two-year-old  son, 
The  old  man  could  ill  contrive  to  support  himself,  but 
he  took  up  the  additional  burden  uncomplainingly,  and 
it  soon  became  welcome  and  precious  to  him.  Little 
Nello  — which  was  but  a  pet  diminutive  for  Nicolas  — 
throve  with  him,  and  the  old  man  and  the  little  chiJd 
lived  in  the  poor  little  hut  contentedly. 

It  was  a  very  humble  little  mud-hut  indeed,  but  it 
was  clean  and  white  as  a  sea-shell,  and  stood  in  a  small 
plot  of  garden  ground  that  yielded  beans  and  herbs 
and  pumpkins.  They  were  very  poor,  terribly  poor,  — 
many  a  day  they  had  nothing  at  all  to  eat.  They  never 
by  any  chance  had  enough;  to  have  had  enough  to  eat 
would  have  been  to  have  reached  paradise  at  once.  But 
the  old  man  was  very  gentle  and  good  to  the  boy,  and  the 
boy  was  a  beautiful,  innocent,  truthful,  tender-natured 
creature;  and  they  were  happy  on  a  crust  and  a  few 
leaves  of  cabbage,  and  asked  no  more  of  earth  or  Heaven ; 
save  indeed  that  Patrasche  should  be  always  with  them, 
since  without  Patrasche  where  would  they  have  been  ? 

For  Patrasche  was  their  alpha  and  omega;  their 
treasury  and  granary;  their  store  of  gold  and  wand 
of  wealth;  their  bread-winner  and  minister;  their  only 
friend  and  comforter.  Patrasche  dead  or  gone  from 
them,  they  must  have  laid  themselves  down  and  died 
likewise.  Patrasche  was  body,  brains,  hands,  head,  and 
feet  to  both  of  them:  Patrasche  was  their  very  life, 
their  very  soul.  For  Jehan  Daas  was  old  and  a  cripple, 
and  Nello  was  but  a  child;  and  Patrasche  was  their  dog. 

A  dog  of  Flanders,  — yellow  of  hide,  large  of  head 
and  limb,  with  wolf -like  ears  that  stood  erect,  and  legs 

138 


A  DOG  OF  FLANDERS 

bowed  and  feet  widened  in  the  muscular  development 
wrought  in  his  breed  by  many  generations  of  hard  ser- 
vice: Patrasche  came  of  a  race  which  had  toiled  hard 
and  cruelly  from  sire  to  son  in  Flanders  many  a  century, 
—  slaves  of  slaves,  dogs  of  the  people,  beasts  of  the 
shafts  and  the  harness,  creatures  that  lived  straining 
their  sinews  in  the  gall  of  the  cart,  and  died  breaking 
their  hearts  on  the  flints  of  the  streets. 

Patrasche  had  been  born  of  parents  who  had  labored 
hard  all  their  days  over  the  sharp-set  stones  of  the 
various  cities  and  the  long,  shadowless,  weary  roads  of 
the  two  Flanders  and  of  Brabant.  He  had  been  born 
to  no  other  heritage  than  those  of  pain  and  of  toil.  He 
had  been  fed  on  curses  and  baptized  with  blows.  Why 
not  ?  It  was  a  Christian  country,  and  Patrasche  was 
but  a  dog.  Before  he  was  fully  grown  he  had  known 
the  bitter  gall  of  the  cart  and  the  collar.  Before  he 
had  entered  his  thirteenth  month  he  had  become  the 
property  of  a  hardware  dealer,  who  was  accustomed  to 
wander  over  the  land  north  and  south,  from  the  blue 
sea  to  the  green  mountains.  They  sold  him  for  a  small 
price,  because  he  was  so  young. 

This  man  was  a  drunkard  and  a  brute.  The  life  of 
Patrasche  was  a  life  of  hell.  To  deal  the  tortures  of  hell 
on  the  animal  creation  is  a  way  which  the  Christians 
have  of  showing  their  belief  in  it.  His  purchaser  was 
a  sullen,  ill-living,  brutal  Brabantois,  who  heaped  his 
cart  full  with  pots  and  pans  and  flagons  and  buckets, 
and  other  wares  of  crockery  and  brass  and  tin,  and  left 
Patrasche  to  draw  the  load  as  best  he  might,  whilst 
he  himself  lounged  idly  by  the  side  in  fat  and  sluggish 

139 


MODERN  STORIES 

ease,  smoking  his  black  pipe  and  stopping  at  every 
wine-shop  or  cafe  on  the  road. 

Happily  for  Patrasche  —  or  unhappily  —  he  was 
very  strong:  he  came  of  an  iron  race,  long  born  and 
bred  to  such  cruel  travail;  so  that  he  did  not  die,  but 
managed  to  drag  on  a  wretched  existence  under  the 
brutal  burdens,  the  scarifying  lashes,  the  hunger,  the 
thirst,  the  blows,  the  curses,  and  the  exhaustion  which 
are  the  only  wages  with  which  the  Flemings  repay  the 
most  patient  and  laborious  of  all  their  four-footed  vic- 
tims. One  day,  after  two  years  of  this  long  and  deadly 
agony,  Patrasche  was  going  on  as  usual  along  one  of 
the  straight,  dusty,  unlovely  roads  that  lead  to  the  city 
of  Rubens.  It  was  full  midsummer,  and  very  warm. 
His  cart  was  very  heavy,  piled  high  with  goods  in  metal 
and  in  earthenware.  His  owner  sauntered  on  without 
noticing  him  otherwise  than  by  the  crack  of  the  whip 
as  it  curled  round  his  quivering  loins.  The  Brabantois 
had  paused  to  drink  beer  himself  at  every  wayside 
house,  but  he  had  forbidden  Patrasche  to  stop  a  mo- 
ment for  a  draught  from  the  canal.  Going  along  thus, 
in  the  full  sun,  on  a  scorching  highway,  having  eaten 
nothing  for  twenty-four  hours,  and,  which  was  far 
worse  to  him,  not  having  tasted  water  for  nearly  twelve, 
being  blind  with  dust,  sore  with  blows,  and  stupefied 
with  the  merciless  weight  which  dragged  upon  his  loins, 
Pastrasche,  for  once,  staggered  and  foamed  a  little  at 
the  mouth  and  fell. 

He  fell  in  the  middle  of  the  white,  dusty  road,  in  the 
full  glare  of  the  sun:  he  was  sick  unto  death,  and  mo- 
tionless.   His  master  gave  him  the  only  medicine  in  his 

140 


A  DOG  OF  FLANDERS 

pharmacy,  — kicks  and  oaths  and  blows  with  a  cudgel 
of  oak,  which  had  been  often  the  only  food  and  drink, 
the  only  wage  and  reward,  ever  offered  to  him.  But 
Patrasche  was  beyond  the  reach  of  any  torture  or  of 
any  curses.  Patrasche  lay,  dead  to  all  appearances, 
down  in  the  white  powder  of  the  summer  dust.  After 
a  while,  finding  it  useless  to  assail  his  ribs  with  punish- 
ment and  his  ears  with  maledictions,  the  Brabantois  — 
deeming  life  gone  in  him,  or  going  so  nearly  that  his 
carcass  was  forever  useless,  unless  indeed  some  one 
should  strip  it  of  the  skin  for  gloves  —  cursed  him 
fiercely  in  farewell,  struck  off  the  leathern  bands  of  the 
harness,  kicked  his  body  heavily  aside  into  the  grass, 
and,  groaning  and  muttering  in  savage  wrath,  pushed 
the  cart  lazily  along  the  road  uphill,  and  left  the  dying 
dog  there  for  the  ants  to  sting  and  for  the  crows  to  pick. 

It  was  the  last  day  before  Kermesse  away  at  Lou- 
vain,  and  the  Brabantois  was  in  haste  to  reach  the  fair 
and  get  a  good  place  for  his  truck  of  brass  wares.  He 
was  in  fierce  wrath,  because  Patrasche  had  been  a  strong 
and  much-enduring  animal,  and  because  he  himself  had 
now  the  hard  task  of  pushing  his  charette  all  the  way 
to  Lou  vain.  But  to  stay  to  look  after  Patrasche  never 
entered  his  thoughts:  the  beast  was  dying  and  useless, 
and  he  would  steal,  to  replace  him,  the  first  large  dog 
that  he  found  wandering  alone  out  of  sight  of  its  master. 
Patrasche  had  cost  him  nothing,  or  next  to  nothing, 
and  for  two  long,  cruel  years  he  had  made  him  toil 
ceaselessly  in  his  service  from  sunrise  to  sunset,  through 
summer  and  winter,  in  fair  weather  and  foul. 

He  had  got  a  fair  use  and  a  good  profit  out  of  Pa- 

141 


MODERN   STORIES 

trasche:  being  human,  he  was  wise,  and  left  the  dog 
to  draw  his  last  breath  alone  in  the  ditch,  and  have  his 
bloodshot  eyes  plucked  out  as  they  might  be  by  the 
birds,  whilst  he  himself  went  on  his  way  to  beg  and  to 
steal,  to  eat  and  to  drink,  to  dance  and  to  sing,  in  the 
mirth  at  Louvain.  A  dying  dog,  a  dog  of  the  cart,  — 
why  should  he  waste  hours  over  its  agonies  at  peril  of 
losing  a  handful  of  copper  coins,  at  peril  of  a  shout 
of  laughter? 

Patrasche  lay  there,  flung  in  the  grass-green  ditch. 
It  was  a  busy  road  that  day,  and  hundreds  of  people, 
on  foot  and  on  mules,  in  wagons  or  in  carts,  went  by, 
tramping  quickly  and  joyously  on  to  Louvain.  Some 
saw  him,  most  did  not  even  look:  all  passed  on.  A 
dead  dog  more  or  less,  —  it  was  nothing  in  Brabant : 
it  would  be  nothing  anywhere  in  the  world. 

After  a  time,  amongst  the  holiday  makers,  there 
came  a  little  old  man  who  was  bent  and  lame,  and  very 
feeble.  He  was  in  no  guise  for  feasting:  he  was  very 
poorly  and  miserably  clad,  and  he  dragged  his  silent 
way  slowly  through  the  dust  amongst  the  pleasure 
seekers.  He  looked  at  Patrasche,  paused,  wondered, 
turned  aside,  then  kneeled  down  in  the  rank  grass  and 
weeds  of  the  ditch,  and  surveyed  the  dog  with  kindly 
eyes  of  pity.  There  was  with  him  a  little  rosy,  fair- 
haired,  dark-eyed  child  of  a  few  years  old,  who  pat- 
tered in  amidst  the  bushes,  that  were  for  him  breast- 
high,  and  stood  gazing  with  a  pretty  seriousness  upon 
the  poor,  great,  quiet  beast. 

Thus  it  was  that  these  two  first  met,  — the  little 
Nello  and  the  big  Patrasche. 

142 


A  DOG  OF  FLANDERS 


II 

The  upshot  of  that  day  was,  that  old  Jehan  Daas, 
with  much  laborious  effort,  drew  the  sufferer  home- 
ward to  his  own  little  hut,  which  was  a  stone's-throw 
off  amidst  the  fields,  and  there  tended  him  with  so  much 
care  that  the  sickness,  which  had  been  a  brain  seizure, 
brought  on  by  heat  and  thirst  and  exhaustion,  with 
time  and  shade  and  rest  passed  away,  and  health  and 
strength  returned,  and  Patrasche  staggered  up  again 
upon  his  four  stout,  tawny  legs. 

Now  for  many  weeks  he  had  been  useless,  power- 
less, sore,  near  to  death;  but  all  this  time  he  had  heard 
no  rough  word,  had  felt  no  harsh  touch,  but  only  the 
pitying  murmurs  of  the  little  child's  voice  and  the 
soothing  caress  of  the  old  man's  hand. 

In  his  sickness  they  two  had  grown  to  care  for  him, 
this  lonely  old  man  and  the  little  happy  child.  He  had 
a  corner  of  the  hut,  with  a  heap  of  dry  grass  for  his 
bed;  and  they  had  learned  to  listen  eagerly  for  his 
breathing  in  the  dark  night,  to  tell  them  that  he  lived; 
and  when  he  first  was  well  enough  to  essay  a  loud, 
hollow,  broken  bay,  they  laughed  aloud,  and  almost 
wept  together  for  joy  at  such  a  sign  of  his  sure  resto- 
ration; and  little  Nello,  in  delighted  glee,  hung  round 
his  rugged  neck  chains  of  marguerites,  and  kissed  him 
with  fresh  and  ruddy  lips. 

So  then,  when  Patrasche  arose,  himself  again,  strong, 
big,  gaunt,  powerful,  his  great  wistful  eyes  had  a  gentle 
astonishment  in  them  that  there  were  no  curses  to  rouse 

143 


MODERN   STORIES 

him  and  no  blows  to  drive  him;  and  his  heart  awak- 
ened to  a  mighty  love,  which  never  wavered  once  in  its 
fidelity  whilst  life  abode  with  him. 

But  Patrasche,  being  a  dog,  was  grateful.  Patrasche 
lay  pondering  long  with  grave,  tender,  musing  brown 
eyes,  watching  the  movements  of  his  friends. 

Now,  the  old  soldier,  Jehan  Daas,  could  do  nothing 
for  his  living  but  limp  about  a  little  with  a  small  cart, 
with  which  he  carried  daily  the  milk-cans  of  those 
happier  neighbors  who  owned  cattle  away  into  the  town 
of  Antwerp.  The  villagers  gave  him  the  employment 
a  little  out  of  charity,  — more  because  it  suited  them 
well  to  send  their  milk  into  the  town  by  so  honest  a 
carrier,  and  bide  at  home  themselves  to  look  after  their 
gardens,  their  cows,  their  poultry,  or  their  little  fields. 
But  it  was  becoming  hard  work  for  the  old  man.  He 
was  eighty-three,  and  Antwerp  was  a  good  league  off, 
or  more. 

Patrasche  watched  the  milk-cans  come  and  go  that 
one  day  when  he  had  got  well  and  was  lying  in  the  sun 
with  the  wreath  of  marguerites  round  his  tawny  neck. 

The  next  morning,  Patrasche,  before  the  old  man  had 
touched  the  cart,  arose  and  walked  to  it  and  placed 
himself  betwixt  its  handles,  and  testified  as  plainly  as 
dumb  show  could  do  his  desire  and  his  ability  to  work 
in  return  for  the  bread  of  charity  that  he  had  eaten. 
Jehan  Daas  resisted  long,  for  the  old  man  was  one  of 
those  who  thought  it  a  foul  shame  to  bind  dogs  to  labor 
for  which  Nature  never  formed  them.  But  Patrasche 
would  not  be  gainsaid:  finding  they  did  not  harness 
him,  he  tried  to  draw  the  cart  onward  with  his  teeth 

144 


A  DOG  OF  FLANDERS 

At  length  Jehan  Daas  gave  way,  vanquished  by  the 
persistence  and  the  gratitude  of  this  creature  whom  he 
had  succored.  He  fashioned  his  cart  so  that  Patrasche' 
could  run  in  it,  and  this  he  did  every  morning  of  his 
life  thenceforward. 

When  the  winter  came,  Jehan  Daas  thanked  the 
blessed  fortune  that  had  brought  him  to  the  dying  dog 
in  the  ditch  that  fair-day  of  Louvain;  for  he  was  very 
old,  and  he  grew  feebler  with  each  year,  and  he  would 
ill  have  known  how  to  pull  his  load  of  milk-cans  over 
the  snows  and  through  the  deep  ruts  in  the  mud  if  it 
had  not  been  for  the  strength  and  the  industry  of  the 
animal  he  had  befriended.  As  for  Patrasche,  it  seemed 
heaven  to  him.  After  the  frightful  burdens  that  his  old 
master  had  compelled  him  to  strain  under,  at  the  call 
of  the  whip  at  every  step,  it  seemed  nothing  to  him  but 
amusement  to  step  out  with  this  little  light,  green  cart, 
with  its  bright  brass  cans,  by  the  side  of  the  gentle  old 
man,  who  always  paid  him  with  a  tender  caress  and 
with  a  kindly  word.  Besides,  his  work  was  over  by 
three  or  four  in  the  day,  and  after  that  time  he  was  free 
to  do  as  he  would,  — to  stretch  himself,  to  sleep  in  the 
sun,  to  wander  in  the  fields,  to  romp  with  the  young 
child,  or  to  play  with  his  fellow  dogs.  Patrasche  was 
very  happy. 

Fortunately  for  his  peace,  his  former  owner  was 
killed  in  a  drunken  brawl  at  the  Kermesse  of  Mechlin, 
and  so  sought  not  after  him  nor  disturbed  him  in  his 
new  and  well-loved  home. 

A  few  years  later,  old  Jehan  Daas,  who  had  always 
been  a  cripple,  became  so  paralyzed  with  rheumatism 

145 


MODERN  STORIES 

that  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  go  out  with  the  cart 
any  more.  Then  little  Nello,  being  now  grown  to  his 
sixth  year  of  age,  and  knowing  the  town  well  from 
having  accompanied  his  grandfather  so  many  times,  took 
his  place  beside  the  cart,  and  sold  the  milk  and  received 
the  coins  in  exchange,  and  brought  them  back  to  their 
respective  owners  with  a  pretty  grace  and  seriousness 
which  charmed  all  who  beheld  him. 

The  little  Ardennois  was  a  beautiful  child,  with  dark, 
grave,  tender  eyes,  and  a  lovely  bloom  upon  his  face, 
and  fair  locks  that  clustered  to  his  throat;  and  many 
an  artist  sketched  the  group  as  it  went  by  him,  — the 
green  cart  with  the  brass  flagons  of  Teniers  and  Mieris 
and  Van  Tal,  and  the  great  tawny-colored,  massive  dog, 
with  his  belled  harness  that  chimed  cheerily  as  he  went, 
and  the  small  figure  that  ran  beside  him,  which  had 
little  white  feet  in  great  wooden  shoes,  and  a  soft,  grave, 
innocent,  happy  face  like  the  little  fair  children  of  Ru- 
bens. 

Nello  and  Patrasche  did  the  work  so  well  and  so  joy- 
fully together  that  Jehan  Daas  himself,  when  the  sum- 
mer came  and  he  was  better  again,  had  no  need  to  stir 
out,  but  could  sit  in  the  doorway  in  the  sun  and  see 
them  go  forth  through  the  garden  wicket,  and  then 
doze  and  dream  and  pray  a  little,  and  then  awake  again 
as  the  clock  tolled  three  and  watch  for  their  return. 
And  on  their  return  Patrasche  would  shake  himself 
free  of  his  harness  with  a  bay  of  glee,  and  Nello  would 
recount  with  pride  the  doings  of  the  day ;  and  they  would 
all  go  in  together  to  their  meal  of  rye  bread  and  milk 
or  soup,  and  would  see  the  shadows  lengthen  over  the 

146 


t+* 


rzi&Tzji 


^i^ 


dm 


S-MVJr^  v: 


& 


NELLO  AND  PATRASCHE  DID  THE  WORK  SO  WELL  AND  SO  JOY- 
FULLY TOGETHER  THAT  JEHAN  DAAS  HIMSELF,  WHEN  THE  SUM- 
MER CAME  AND  HE  WAS  BETTER  AGAIN,  HAD  NO  NEED  TO  STIR 
OUT,  BUT  COULD  SIT  IN  THE  DOORWAY  IN  THE  SUN  AND  SEE  THEM  •*     . , 

«K  15*3  aT^\ 


SiSSfSL 


z%® 


A  DOG  OF  FLANDERS 

great  plain,  and  see  the  twilight  veil  the  fair  cathedral 
spire;  and  then  lie  down  together  to  sleep  peacefully 
while  the  old  man  said  a  prayer. 

Ill 

So  the  days  and  years  went  on,  and  the  lives  of  Nellc 
and  Patrasche  were  happy,  innocent,  and  healthful. 

In  the  spring  and  summer  especially  were  they  glad. 
Flanders  is  not  a  lovely  land,  and  around  the  burgh  of 
Rubens  it  is  perhaps  least  lovely  of  all.  Corn  and  colza, 
pasture  and  plow,  succeed  each  other  on  the  charac- 
terless plain  in  wearying  repetition,  and  save  by  some 
gaunt  gray  tower,  with  its  peal  of  pathetic  bells,  or  some 
figure  coming  athwart  the  fields,  made  picturesque  by 
a  gleaner's  bundle  or  a  woodman's  fagot,  there  is  no 
change,  no  variety,  no  beauty  anywhere;  and  he  who 
has  dwelt  upon  the  mountains  or  amidst  the  forests 
feels  oppressed  as  by  imprisonment  with  the  tedium  and 
the  endlessness  of  that  vast  and  dreary  level.  But  it  is 
green  and  very  fertile,  and  it  has  wide  horizons  that 
have  a  certain  charm  of  their  own  even  in  their  dullness 
and  monotony;  and  amongst  the  rushes  by  the  water- 
side the  flowers  grow,  and  the  trees  rise  tall  and  fresh 
where  the  barges  glide  with  their  great  hulks  black 
against  the  sun,  and  their  little  green  barrels  and  vari- 
colored flags  gay  against  the  leaves.  Anyway,  there  is 
greenery  and  breadth  of  space  enough  to  be  as  good  as 
beauty  to  a  child  and  a  dog;  and  these  two  asked  no 
better,  when  their  work  was  done,  than  to  lie  buried  in 
the  lush  grasses  on  the  side  of  the  canal,  and  watch  the 

147 


MODERN   STORIES 

cumbrous  vessels  drifting  by  and  bringing  the  crisp 
salt  smell  of  the  sea  amongst  the  blossoming  scents  of 
the  country  summer. 

True,  in  the  winter  it  was  harder,  and  they  had  to 
rise  in  the  darkness  and  the  bitter  cold,  and  they  had 
seldom  as  much  as  they  could  have  eaten  any  day,  and 
the  hut  was  scarce  better  than  a  shed  when  the  nights 
were  cold,  although  it  looked  so  pretty  in  warm  weather, 
buried  in  a  great  kindly  clambering  vine,  that  never 
bore  fruit,  indeed,  but  which  covered  it  with  luxuriant 
green  tracery  all  through  the  months  of  blossom  and 
harvest.  In  winter  the  winds  found  many  holes  in  the 
walls  of  the  poor  little  hut,  and  the  vine  was  black  and 
leafless,  and  the  bare  lands  looked  very  bleak  and  drear 
without,  and  sometimes  within  the  floor  was  flooded 
and  then  frozen.  In  winter  it  was  hard,  and  the  snow 
numbed  the  little  white  limbs  of  Nello,  and  the  icicles 
cut  the  brave,  untiring  feet  of  Patrasche. 

But  even  then  they  were  never  heard  to  lament,  either 
of  them.  The  child's  wooden  shoes  and  the  dog's  four 
legs  would  trot  manfully  together  over  the  frozen  fields 
to  the  chime  of  the  bells  on  the  harness ;  and  then  some- 
times, in  the  streets  of  Antwerp,  some  housewife  would 
bring  them  a  bowl  of  soup  and  a  handful  of  bread,  01 
some  kindly  trader  would  throw  some  billets  of  fuel 
into  the  little  cart  as  it  went  homeward,  or  some  woman 
in  their  own  village  would  bid  them  keep  some  share 
of  the  milk  they  carried  for  their  own  food;  and  then 
they  would  run  over  the  white  lands,  through  the  early 
darkness,  bright  and  happy,  and  burst  with  a  shout  of 
joy  into  their  home. 

148 


A   DOG  OF  FLANDERS 

So,  on  the  whole,  it  was  well  with  them,  very  well; 
and  Patrasche,  meeting  on  the  highway  or  in  the  pub- 
lic streets  the  many  dogs  who  toiled  from  daybreak  into 
nightfall,  paid  only  with  blows  and  curses,  and  loosened 
from  the  shafts  with  a  kick  to  starve  and  freeze  as  best 
they  might,  —  Patrasche  in  his  heart  was  very  grateful 
to  his  fate,  and  thought  it  the  fairest  and  the  kindliest 
the  world  could  hold.  Though  he  was  often  very  hungry 
indeed  when  he  lay  down  at  night;  though  he  had  to 
work  in  the  heats  of  summer  noons  and  the  rasping 
chills  of  winter  dawns ;  though  his  feet  were  often  ten- 
der with  wounds  from  the  sharp  edges  of  the  jagged 
pavement;  though  he  had  to  perform  tasks  beyond  his 
strength  and  against  his  nature,  — yet  he  was  grateful 
and  content:  he  did  his  duty  with  each  day,  and  the 
eyes  that  he  loved  smiled  down  on  him.  It  was  suffi- 
cient for  Patrasche. 

There  was  only  one  thing  which  caused  Patrasche 
any  uneasiness  in  his  life,  and  it  was  this.  Antwerp,  as 
all  the  world  knows,  is  full  at  every  turn  of  old  piles 
of  stones,  dark  and  ancient  and  majestic,  standing  in 
crooked  courts,  jammed  against  gateways  and  taverns, 
rising  by  the  water's  edge,  with  bells  ringing  above 
them  in  the  air,  and  ever  and  again  out  of  their  arched 
doors  a  swell  of  music  pealing.  There  they  remain, 
the  grand  old  sanctuaries  of  the  past,  shut  in  amidst  the 
squalor,  the  hurry,  the  crowds,  the  unloveliness,  and 
the  commerce  of  the  modern  world,  and  all  day  long 
the  clouds  drift  and  the  birds  circle  and  the  winds  sigh 
around  them,  and  beneath  the  earth  at  their  feet  there 
sleeps  —  Rubens. 

149 


MODERN  STORIES 

And  the  greatness  of  the  mighty  Master  still  rests 
upon  Antwerp,  and  wherever  we  turn  in  its  narrow 
streets  his  glory  lies  therein,  so  that  all  mean  things 
are  thereby  transfigured ;  and  as  we  pace  slowly  through 
the  winding  ways,  and  by  the  edge  of  the  stagnant 
water,  and  through  the  noisome  courts,  his  spirit  abides 
with  us,  and  the  heroic  beauty  of  his  visions  is  about 
us,  and  the  stones  that  once  felt  his  footsteps  and  bore 
his  shadow  seem  to  arise  and  speak  of  him  with  living 
voices.  For  the  city  which  is  the  tomb  of  Rubens  still 
lives  to  us  through  him,  and  him  alone. 

It  is  so  quiet  there  by  that  great  white  sepulchre,  — 
so  quiet,  save  only  when  the  organ  peals  and  the  choir 
cries  aloud  the  Salve  Regina  or  the  Kyrie  Eleison. 
Sure  no  artist  ever  had  a  greater  gravestone  than  that 
pure  marble  sanctuary  gives  to  him  in  the  heart  of  his 
birthplace  in  the  chancel  of  St.  Jacques. 

Without  Rubens,  what  were  Antwerp  ?  A  dirty, 
dusky,  bustling  mart,  which  no  man  would  ever  care 
to  look  upon  save  the  traders  who  do  business  on  its 
wharves.  With  Rubens,  to  the  whole  world  of  men  it 
is  a  sacred  name,  a  sacred  soil,  a  Bethlehem  where  a 
god  of  Art  saw  light,  a  Golgotha  where  a  god  of  Art  lies 
dead. 

O  nations!  closely  should  you  treasure  your  great 
men,  for  by  them  alone  will  the  future  know  of  you. 
Flanders  in  her  generations  has  been  wise.  In  his  life 
she  glorified  this  greatest  of  her  sons,  and  in  his  death 
she  magnifies  his  name.    But  her  wisdom  is  very  rare. 

Now,  the  trouble  of  Patrasche  was  this.  Into  these 
great,  sad  piles  of  stones,  that  reared  their  melancholy 

150 


A  DOG   OF  FLANDERS 

majesty  above  the  crowded  roofs,  the  child  Nello  would 
many  and  many  a  time  enter,  and  disappear  through 
their  dark,  arched  portals,  whilst  Patrasche,  left  with- 
out upon  the  pavement,  would  wearily  and  vainly  pon- 
der on  what  could  be  the  charm  which  thus  allured 
from  him  his  inseparable  and  beloved  companion. 
Once  or  twice  he  did  essay  to  see  for  himself,  clattering 
up  the  steps  with  his  milk-cart  behind  him ;  but  thereon 
he  had  been  always  sent  back  again  summarily  by  a 
tall  custodian  in  black  clothes  and  silver  chains  of  office; 
and  fearful  of  bringing  his  little  master  into  trouble, 
he  desisted,  and  remained  couched  patiently  before  the 
churches  until  such  time  as  the  boy  reappeared.  It 
was  not  the  fact  of  his  going  into  them  which  disturbed 
Patrasche :  he  knew  that  people  went  to  church :  all  the 
village  went  to  the  small,  tumble-down,  gray  pile  oppo- 
site the  red  windmill.  What  troubled  him  was  that 
little  Nello  always  looked  strangely  when  he  came  out, 
always  very  flushed  or  very  pale;  and  whenever  he  re- 
turned home  after  such  visitations  would  sit  silent  and 
dreaming,  not  caring  to  play,  but  gazing  out  at  the 
evening  skies  beyond  the  line  of  the  canal,  very  subdued 
and  almost  sad. 

What  was  it?  wondered  Patrasche.  He  thought  it 
could  not  be  good  or  natural  for  the  little  lad  to  be  so 
grave,  and  in  his  dumb  fashion  he  tried  all  he  could  to 
keep  Nello  by  him  in  the  sunny  fields  or  in  the  busy 
market-place.  But  to  the  churches  Nello  would  go: 
most  often  of  all  would  he  go  to  the  great  cathedral ;  and 
Patrasche,  left  without  on  the  stones  by  the  iron  frag- 
ments of  Quentin  Matsys's  gate,  would  stretch  himself 

151 


MODERN   STORIES 

and  yawn  and  sigh,  and  even  howl  now  and  then,  all 
in  vain,  until  the  doors  closed  and  the  child  perforce 
came  forth  again,  and  winding  his  arms  about  the 
dog's  neck  would  kiss  him  on  his  broad,  tawny-colored 
forehead,  and  murmur  always  the  same  words:  "If  I 
could  only  see  them,  Patrasche !  —  if  I  could  only  see 
them!" 

What  were  they?  pondered  Patrasche,  looking  up 
with  large,  wistful,  sympathetic  eyes. 

One  day,  when  the  custodian  was  out  of  the  way  and 
the  doors  left  ajar,  he  got  in  for  a  moment  after  his  little 
friend  and  saw.  "They"  were  two  great  covered  pic- 
tures on  either  side  of  the  choir. 

Nello  was  kneeling,  rapt  as  in  an  ecstasy,  before  the 
altar  picture  of  the  Assumption,  and  when  he  noticed 
Patrasche,  and  rose  and  drew  the  dog  gently  out  into 
the  air,  his  face  was  wet  with  tears,  and  he  looked  up 
at  the  veiled  places  as  he  passed  them,  and  murmured 
to  his  companion,  "It  is  so  terrible  not  to  see  them, 
Patrasche,  just  because  one  is  poor  and  cannot  pay !  He 
never  meant  that  the  poor  should  not  see  them  when 
he  painted  them,  I  am  sure.  He  would  have  had  us  see 
them  any  day,  every  day:  that  I  am  sure.  And  they 
keep  them  shrouded  there,  — shrouded  in  the  dark, 
the  beautiful  things!  — and  they  never  feel  the  light, 
and  no  eyes  look  on  them,  unless  rich  people  come  and 
pay.  If  I  could  only  see  them,  I  would  be  content  to 
die." 

But  he  could  not  see  them,  and  Patrasche  could  not 
help  him,  for  to  gain  the  silver  piece  that  the  church 
exacts  as  the  price  for  looking  on  the  glories  of  the  Ele- 

152 


A  DOG  OF  FLANDERS 

vation  of  the  Cross  and  the  Descent  from  the  Cross  was 
a  thing  as  utterly  beyond  the  powers  of  either  of  them 
as  it  would  have  been  to  scale  the  heights  of  the  cathedral 
spire.  They  had  never  so  much  as  a  sou  to  spare:  if 
they  cleared  enough  to  get  a  little  wood  for  the  stove,  a 
little  broth  for  the  pot,  it  was  the  utmost  they  could  do. 
And  yet  the  heart  of  the  child  was  set  in  sore  and  end- 
less longing  upon  beholding  the  greatness  of  the  two 
veiled  Rubens. 

The  whole  soul  of  the  little  Ardennois  thrilled  and 
stirred  with  an  absorbing  passion  for  Art.  Going  on 
his  ways  through  the  old  city  in  the  early  days  before 
the  sun  or  the  people  had  risen,  Nello,  who  looked  only 
a  little  peasant-boy,  with  a  great  dog  drawing  milk  to 
sell  from  door  to  door,  was  in  a  heaven  of  dreams 
whereof  Rubens  was  the  god.  Nello,  cold  and  hungry, 
with  stockingless  feet  in  wooden  shoes,  and  the  winter 
winds  blowing  amongst  his  curls  and  lifting  his  poor 
thin  garments,  was  in  a  rapture  of  meditation,  wherein 
all  that  he  saw  was  the  beautiful  fair  face  of  the  Mary 
of  the  Assumption,  with  the  waves  of  her  golden  hair 
lying  upon  her  shoulders,  and  the  light  of  an  eternal 
sun  shining  down  upon  her  brow.  Nello,  reared  in  pov- 
erty, and  buffeted  by  fortune,  and  untaught  in  letters, 
and  unheeded  by  men,  had  the  compensation  or  the 
curse  which  is  called  Genius. 

No  one  knew  it;  he  as  little  as  any.  No  one  knew  it. 
Only  indeed  Patrasche,  who,  being  with  him  always, 
saw  him  draw  with  chalk  upon  the  stones  any  and  every 
thing  that  grew  or  breathed,  heard  him  on  his  little  bed 
of  hay  murmur  all  manner  of  timid,  pathetic  prayers  to 

153 


MODERN  STORIES 

the  spirit  of  the  great  Master;  watched  his  gaze  darken 
and  his  face  radiate  at  the  evening  glow  of  sunset  or  the 
rosy  rising  of  the  dawn ;  and  felt  many  and  many  a  time 
the  tears  of  a  strange  nameless  pain  and  joy,  mingled 
together,  fall  hotly  from  the  bright  young  eyes  upon 
his  own  wrinkled,  yellow  forehead. 

"  I  should  go  to  my  grave  quite  content  if  I  thought, 
Nello,  that  when  thou  growest  a  man  thou  couldst  own 
this  hut  and  the  little  plot  of  ground,  and  labor  for  thy- 
self, and  be  called  Baas  by  thy  neighbors,"  said  the  old 
man  Jehan  many  an  hour  from  his  bed.  For  to  own  a 
bit  of  soil,  and  to  be  called  Baas  —  master  —  by  the 
hamlet  round,  is  to  have  achieved  the  highest  ideal  of 
a  Flemish  peasant;  and  the  old  soldier,  who  had  wan- 
dered over  all  the  earth  in  his  youth,  and  had  brought 
nothing  back,  deemed  in  his  old  age  that  to  live  and 
die  on  one  spot  in  contented  humility  was  the  fairest 
fate  he  could  desire  for  his  darling.  But  Nello  said 
nothing. 

The  same  leaven  was  working  in  him  that  in  other 
times  begat  Rubens  and  Jordaens  and  the  Van  Eycks, 
and  all  their  wondrous  tribe,  and  in  times  more  recent 
begat  in  the  green  country  of  the  Ardennes,  where  the 
Meuse  washes  the  old  walls  of  Dijon,  the  great  artist 
of  the  Patroclus,  whose  genius  is  too  near  us  for  us 
aright  to  measure  its  divinity. 

Nello  dreamed  of  other  things  in  the  future  than  of 
tilling  the  little  rood  of  earth,  and  living  under  the 
wattle  roof,  and  being  called  Baas  by  neighbors  a  little 
poorer  or  a  little  less  poor  than  himself.  The  cathe- 
dral spire,  where  it  rose  beyond  the  fields  in  the  ruddy 

154 


A  DOG   OF  FLANDERS 

evening  skies  or  in  the  dim,  gray,  misty  mornings,  said 
other  things  to  him  than  this.  But  these  he  told  only 
to  Patrasche,  whispering,  childlike,  his  fancies  in  the 
dog's  ear  when  they  went  together  at  their  work  through 
the  fogs  of  the  daybreak,  or  lay  together  at  their  rest 
amongst  the  rustling  rushes  by  the  water's  side. 

For  such  dreams  are  not  easily  shaped  into  speech 
to  awake  the  slow  sympathies  of  human  auditors;  and 
they  would  only  have  sorely  perplexed  and  troubled 
the  poor  old  man  bedridden  in  his  corner,  who,  for  his 
part,  whenever  he  had  trodden  the  streets  of  Antwerp, 
had  thought  the  daub  of  blue  and  red  that  they  called 
a  Madonna,  on  the  walls  of  the  wine-shop  where  he 
drank  his  sou's  worth  of  black  beer,  quite  as  good  as 
any  of  the  famous  altar-pieces  for  which  the  stranger 
folk  traveled  far  and  wide  into  Flanders  from  every 
land  on  which  the  good  sun  shone. 

IV 

There  was  only  one  other  beside  Patrasche  to  whom 
Nello  could  talk  at  all  of  his  daring  fantasies.  This 
other  was  little  Alois,  who  lived  at  the  old  red  mill 
on  the  grassy  mound,  and  whose  father,  the  miller,  was 
the  best-to-do  husbandman  in  all  the  village.  Little 
Alois  was  only  a  pretty  baby  with  soft  round,  rosy 
features,  made  lovely  by  those  sweet,  dark  eyes  that 
the  Spanish  rule  has  left  in  so  many  a  Flemish  face, 
in  testimony  of  the  Alvan  dominion,  as  Spanish  art  has 
left  broad  sown  throughout  the  country  majestic  pal- 
aces and  stately  courts,  gilded  house-fronts  and  sculp- 

155 


MODERN   STORIES 

tured  lintels,  —  histories  in  blazonry  and  poems  in 
stone. 

Little  Alois  was  often  with  Nello  and  Patrasche. 
They  played  in  the  fields,  they  ran  in  the  snow,  they 
gathered  the  daisies  and  bilberries,  they  went  up  to 
the  old  gray  church  together,  and  they  often  sat  to- 
gether by  the  broad  wood-fire  in  the  mill-house.  Little 
Alois,  indeed,  was  the  richest  child  in  the  hamlet.  She 
had  neither  brother  nor  sister;  her  blue  serge  dress  had 
never  a  hole  in  it;  at  Kermesse  she  had  as  many  gilded 
nuts  and  Agni  Dei  in  sugar  as  her  hands  could  hold; 
and  when  she  went  up  for  her  first  communion  her 
flaxen  curls  were  covered  with  a  cap  of  richest  Mech- 
lin lace,  which  had  been  her  mother's  and  her  grand- 
mother's before  it  came  to  her.  Men  spoke  already, 
though  she  had  but  twelve  years,  of  the  good  wife  she 
would  be  for  their  sons  to  woo  and  win ;  but  she  herself 
was  a  little  gay,  simple  child,  in  nowise  conscious  of  her 
heritage,  and  she  loved  no  playfellows  so  well  as  Jehan 
Daas's  grandson  and  his  dog. 

One  day  her  father,  Baas  Cogez,  a  good  man,  but 
somewhat  stern,  came  on  a  pretty  group  in  the  long 
meadow  behind  the  mill,  where  the  aftermath  had  that 
day  been  cut.  It  was  his  little  daughter  sitting  amidst 
the  hay,  with  the  great  tawny  head  of  Patrasche  on  her 
lap,  and  many  wreaths  of  poppies  and  blue  corn-flowers 
round  them  both :  on  a  clean  smooth  slab  of  pine  wood 
the  boy  Nello  drew  their  likeness  with  a  stick  of  char- 
coal. 

The  miller  stood  and  looked  at  the  portrait  with  tears 
in  his  eyes,  it  was  so  strangely  like,  and  he  loved  his 

156 


SITTING  AMIDST  THE  HAY,  WITH  THE  GREAT  TAWNY  HEAD  OF 
PATRASCHE  ON  HER  LAP,  AND  MANY  WREATHS  OF  POPPIES  AND 
BLUE  CORN-FLOWERS  ROUND  THEM  BOTH:  ON  A  CLEAN  SMOOTH 
SLAB    OF   PINE  WOOD    THE   BOY  NELLO  DREW  THEIR   LIKENESS  Tl' 


■SKEiSfc 


A  DOG  OF  FLANDERS 

only  child  closely  and  well.  Then  he  roughly  chid  the 
little  girl  for  idling  there  whilst  her  mother  needed 
her  within,  and  sent  her  indoors  crying  and  afraid; 
then,  turning,  he  snatched  the  wood  from  Nello's  hands. 
"  Dost  do  much  of  such  folly  ?  "  he  asked,  but  there  was 
a  tremble  in  his  voice. 

Nello  colored  and  hung  his  head.  "I  draw  every- 
thing I  see,"  he  murmured. 

The  miller  was  silent ;  then  he  stretched  his  hand  out 
with  a  franc  in  it.  "  It  is  folly,  as  I  say,  and  evil  waste 
of  time;  nevertheless,  it  is  like  Alois,  and  will  please  the 
house-mother.  Take  this  silver  bit  for  it  and  leave  it 
for  me." 

The  color  died  out  of  the  face  of  the  young  Arden- 
nois;  he  lifted  his  head  and  put  his  hands  behind  his 
back.  "  Keep  your  money  and  the  portrait  both,  Baas 
Cogez,"  he  said  simply.  "You  have  been  often  good 
to  me."  Then  he  called  Patrasche  to  him,  and  walked 
away  across  the  fields. 

"I  could  have  seen  them  with  that  franc,"  he  mur- 
mured to  Patrasche,  "but  I  could  not  sell  her  picture, 
—  not  even  for  them." 

Baas  Cogez  went  into  his  mill-house  sore  troubled  in 
his  mind.  "That  lad  must  not  be  so  much  with  Alois," 
he  said  to  his  wife  that  night.  "Trouble  may  come  of 
it  hereafter:  he  is  fifteen  now,  and  she  is  twelve;  and 
the  boy  is  comely  of  face  and  form." 

"And  he  is  a  good  lad  and  a  loyal,"  said  the  house- 
wife, feasting  her  eyes  on  the  piece  of  pine  wood  where 
it  was  throned  above  the  chimney  with  a  cuckoo  clock 
in  oak  and  a  Calvary  in  wax. 

157 


MODERN   STORIES 

"Yea,  I  do  not  gainsay  that,"  said  the  miller,  drain- 
ing his  pewter  flagon. 

"Then,  if  what  you  think  of  were  ever  to  come  to 
pass,"  said  the  wife  hesitatingly,  "would  it  matter  so 
much  ?  She  will  have  enough  for  both,  and  one  cannot 
be  better  than  happy." 

"You  are  a  woman,  and  therefore  a  fool,"  said  the 
miller  harshly,  striking  his  pipe  on  the  table.  "The 
lad  is  naught  but  a  beggar,  and,  with  these  painter's 
fancies,  worse  than  a  beggar.  Have  a  care  that  they  are 
not  together  in  the  future,  or  I  will  send  the  child  to 
the  surer  keeping  of  the  nuns  of  the  Sacred  Heart." 

The  poor  mother  was  terrified,  and  promised  hum- 
bly to  do  his  will.  Not  that  she  could  bring  herself 
altogether  to  separate  the  child  from  her  favorite  play- 
mate, nor  did  the  miller  even  desire  that  extreme  of 
cruelty  to  a  young  lad  who  was  guilty  of  nothing  except 
poverty.  But  there  were  many  ways  in  which  little  Alois 
was  kept  away  from  her  chosen  companion ;  and  Nello, 
being  a  boy  proud  and  quiet  and  sensitive,  was  quickly 
wounded,  and  ceased  to  turn  his  own  steps  and  those  of 
Patrasche,  as  he  had  been  used  to  do  with  every  mo- 
ment of  leisure,  to  the  old  red  mill  upon  the  slope.  What 
his  offense  wTas  he  did  not  know:  he  supposed  he  had 
in  some  manner  angered  Baas  Cogez  by  taking  the  por- 
trait of  Alois  in  the  meadow;  and  when  the  child  who 
loved  him  would  run  to  him  and  nestle  her  hand  in  his, 
he  would  smile  at  her  very  sadly  and  say  with  a  tender 
concern  for  her  before  himself,  "Nay,  Alois,  do  not 
anger  your  father.  He  thinks  that  I  make  you  idle,  dear, 
and  he  is  not  pleased  that  you  should  be  with  me.    He 

158 


A  DOG  OF  FLANDERS 

is  a  good  man  and  loves  you  well:  we  will  not  anger 
him,  Alois." 

But  it  was  with  a  sad  heart  that  he  said  it,  and  the 
earth  did  not  look  so  bright  to  him  as  it  had  used  to  do 
when  he  went  out  at  sunrise  under  the  poplars  down 
the  straight  roads  with  Patrasche.  The  old  red  mill  had 
been  a  landmark  to  him,  and  he  had  been  used  to  pause 
by  it,  going  and  coming,  for  a  cheery  greeting  with  its 
people  as  her  little  flaxen  head  rose  above  the  low  mill- 
wicket,  and  her  little  rosy  hands  had  held  out  a  bone  or 
a  crust  to  Patrasche.  Now  the  dog  looked  wistfully  at  a 
closed  door,  and  the  boy  went  on  without  pausing,  with 
a  pang  at  his  heart,  and  the  child  sat  within  with  tears 
dropping  slowly  on  the  knitting  to  which  she  was  set 
on  her  little  stool  by  the  stove;  and  Baas  Cogez,  work- 
ing among  his  sacks  and  his  mill-gear,  would  harden 
his  will  and  say  to  himself,  "It  is  best  so.  The  lad  is 
all  but  a  beggar,  and  full  of  idle,  dreaming  fooleries. 
Who  knows  what  mischief  might  not  come  of  it  in  the 
future  ?  "  So  he  was  wise  in  his  generation,  and  would 
not  have  the  door  unbarred,  except  upon  rare  and  for- 
mal occasions,  which  seemed  to  have  neither  warmth 
nor  mirth  in  them  to  the  two  children,  who  had  been  ac- 
customed so  long  to  a  daily  gleeful,  careless,  happy  inter- 
change of  greeting,  speech,  and  pastime,  with  no  other 
watcher  of  their  sports  or  auditor  of  their  fancies  than 
Patrasche,  sagely  shaking  the  brazen  bells  of  his  collar 
and  responding  with  all  a  dog's  swift  sympathies  to 
their  every  change  of  mood. 

All  this  while  the  little  panel  of  pine  wood  remained 
over  the  chimney  in  the  mill  kitchen  with  the  cuckoo 

159 


MODERN   STORIES 

clock  and  the  waxen  Calvary;  and  sometimes  it  seemed 
to  Nello  a  little  hard  that  whilst  his  gift  was  accepted 
he  himself  should  be  denied. 

But  he  did  not  complain :  it  was  his  habit  to  be  quiet. 
Old  Jehan  Daas  had  said  ever  to  him,  "We  are  poor; 
we  must  take  what  God  sends,  —  the  ill  with  the  good : 
the  poor  cannot  choose." 

To  which  the  boy  had  always  listened  in  silence,  be- 
ing reverent  of  his  old  grandfather;  but  nevertheless  a 
certain  vague,  sweet  hope,  such  as  beguiles  the  children 
of  genius,  had  whispered  in  his  heart,  "Yet  the  poor 
do  choose  sometimes,  —  choose  to  be  great,  so  that  men 
cannot  say  them  nay."  And  he  thought  so  still  in  his 
innocence;  and  one  day,  when  the  little  Alois,  find- 
ing him  by  chance  alone  amongst  the  cornfields  by  the 
canal,  ran  to  him  and  held  him  close,  and  sobbed  pite- 
ously  because  the  morrow  would  be  her  saint's  day,  and 
for  the  first  time  in  all  her  life  her  parents  had  failed  to 
bid  him  to  the  little  supper  and  romp  in  the  great  barns 
with  which  her  feast-day  was  always  celebrated,  Nello 
had  kissed  her  and  murmured  to  her  in  firm  faith,  "It 
shall  be  different  one  day,  Alois.  One  day  that  little  bit 
of  pine  wood  that  your  father  has  of  mine  shall  be  worth 
its  weight  in  silver ;  and  he  will  not  shut  the  door  against 
me  then.  Only  love  me  always,  dear  little  Alois,  only 
love  me  always,  and  I  will  be  great." 

"  And  if  I  do  not  love  you  ?  "  the  pretty  child  asked, 
pouting  a  little  through  her  tears,  and  moved  by  the  in- 
stinctive coquetries  of  her  sex. 

Nello's  eyes  left  her  face  and  wandered  to  the  dis- 
tance, where  in  the  red  and  gold  of  the  Flemish  night 

160 


A  DOG  OF  FLANDERS 

the  cathedral  spire  rose.  There  was  a  smile  on  his  face 
so  sweet  and  yet  so  sad  that  little  Alois  was  awed  by 
it.  "I  will  be  great  still,"  he  said  under  his  breath,  — 
"great  still,  or  die,  Alois." 

"You  do  not  love  me,"  said  the  little  spoilt  child, 
pushing  him  away;  but  the  boy  shook  his  head  and 
smiled,  and  went  on  his  way  through  the  tall  yellow 
corn,  seeing  as  in  a  vision  some  day  in  a  fair  future  when 
he  should  come  into  that  old  familiar  land  and  ask  Alois 
of  her  people,  and  be  not  refused  or  denied  but  received 
in  honor,  whilst  the  village  folk  should  throng  to  look 
upon  him  and  say  in  one  another's  ears,  "  Dost  see  him  ? 
He  is  a  king  among  men,  for  he  is  a  great  artist  and  the 
world  speaks  his  name;  and  yet  he  was  only  our  poor 
little  Nello,  who  was  a  beggar,  as  one  may  say,  and  only 
got  his  bread  by  the  help  of  his  dog."  And  he  thought 
how  he  would  fold  his  grandsire  in  furs  and  purples, 
and  portray  him  as  the  old  man  is  portrayed  in  the 
Family  in  the  chapel  of  St.  Jacques;  and  of  how  he 
would  hang  the  throat  of  Patrasche  with  a  collar  of  gold, 
and  place  him  on  his  right  hand,  and  say  to  the  people, 
"  This  was  once  my  only  friend ; "  and  of  how  he  would 
build  himself  a  great  white  marble  palace,  and  make 
to  himself  luxuriant  gardens  of  pleasure,  on  the  slope 
looking  outward  to  where  the  cathedral  spire  rose,  and 
not  dwell  in  it  himself,  but  summon  to  it,  as  to  a  home, 
all  men  young  and  poor  and  friendless,  but  of  the  will 
to  do  mighty  things;  and  of  how  he  would  say  to  them 
always,  if  they  sought  to  bless  his  name,  "Nay,  do  not 
thank  me,  — thank  Rubens.  Without  him,  what  should 
I  have  been  ?  "   And  these  dreams,  beautiful,  impossible, 

161 


MODERN  STORIES 

innocent,  free  of  all  selfishness,  full  of  heroical  wor- 
ship, were  so  closely  about  him  as  he  went  that  he  was 
happy,  —  happy  even  on  this  sad  anniversary  of  Alois's 
saint's  day,  when  he  and  Patrasche  went  home  by  them- 
selves to  the  little  dark  hut  and  the  meal  of  black  bread, 
whilst  in  the  mill-house  all  the  children  of  the  village 
sang  and  laughed,  and  ate  the  big  round  cakes  of  Dijon 
and  the  almond  gingerbread  of  Brabant,  and  danced 
in  the  great  barn  to  the  light  of  the  stars  and  the  music 
of  flute  and  fiddle. 

"Never  mind,  Patrasche,"  he  said,  with  his  arms 
round  the  dog's  neck  as  they  both  sat  in  the  door  of 
the  hut,  where  the  sounds  of  the  mirth  at  the  mill  came 
down  to  them  on  the  night  air,  — "never  mind.  It 
shall  all  be  changed  by  and  by." 

He  believed  in  the  future :  Patrasche,  of  more  experi- 
ence and  of  more  philosophy,  thought  that  the  loss  of 
the  mill  supper  in  the  present  was  ill  compensated  by 
dreams  of  milk  and  honey  in  some  vague  hereafter.  And 
Patrasche  growled  whenever  he  passed  by  Baas  Cogez. 

"This  is  Alois's  name-day,  is  it  not?"  said  the  old 
man  Daas  that  night,  from  the  corner  where  he  was 
stretched  upon  his  bed  of  sacking. 

The  boy  gave  a  gesture  of  assent :  he  wished  that  the 
old  man's  memory  had  erred  a  little,  instead  of  keeping 
such  sure  account. 

"And  why  not  there?"  his  grandfather  pursued. 
J'Thou  hast  never  missed  a  year  before,  Nello." 

"Thou  art  too  sick  to  leave,"  murmured  the  lad, 
bending  his  handsome  young  head  over  the  bed. 

'Tut!  tut!  Mother  Nulette  would  have  come  and  sat 

162 


A  DOG  OF  FLANDERS 

with  me,  as  she  does  scores  of  times.  What  is  the  cause, 
Nello  ?"  the  old  man  persisted.  "Thou  surely  hast  not 
had  ill  words  with  the  little  one  ? " 

"Nay,  grandfather, — never,"  said  the  boy  quickly, 
with  a  hot  color  in  his  bent  face.  "Simply  and  truly, 
Baas  Cogez  did  not  have  me  asked  this  year.  He  has 
taken  some  whim  against  me." 

"But  thou  hast  done  nothing  wrong?" 

"That  I  know  —  nothing.  I  took  the  portrait  of 
Alois  on  a  piece  of  pine,  that  is  all." 

"Ah!"  The  old  man  was  silent:  the  truth  suggested 
itself  to  him  with  the  boy's  innocent  answer.  He  was 
tied  to  a  bed  of  dried  leaves  in  the  corner  of  a  wattle 
hut,  but  he  had  not  wholly  forgotten  what  the  ways  of 
the  world  were  like. 

He  drew  Nello's  fair  head  fondly  to  his  breast  with 
a  tenderer  gesture.  "Thou  art  very  poor,  my  child," 
he  said,  with  a  quiver  the  more  in  his  aged,  trembling 
voice,  —  "so  poor!    It  is  very  hard  for  thee." 

"Nay,  I  am  rich,"  murmured  Nello;  and  in  his  in- 
nocence he  thought  so  —  rich  with  the  imperishable 
powers  that  are  mightier  than  the  might  of  kings.  And 
he  went  and  stood  by  the  door  of  the  hut  in  the  quiet  au- 
tumn night,  and  watched  the  stars  troop  by  and  the  tall 
poplars  bend  and  shiver  in  the  wind.  All  the  casements 
of  the  mill-house  were  lighted,  and  every  now  and  then 
the  notes  of  the  flute  came  to  him.  The  tears  fell  down 
his  cheeks,  for  he  was  but  a  child ;  yet  he  smiled,  for  he 
said  to  himself,  "In  the  future!"  He  stayed  there  until 
all  was  quite  still  and  dark,  then  he  and  Patrasche  went 
within  and  slept  together  long  and  deeply,  side  by  side. 

163 


MODERN   STORIES 


Now  he  had  a  secret  which  only  Patrasche  knew. 
There  was  a  little  outhouse  to  the  hut,  which  no  one 
entered  but  himself,  —  a  dreary  place,  but  with  abun- 
dant clear  light  from  the  north.  Here  he  had  fashioned 
himself  rudely  an  easel  in  rough  lumber,  and  here  on  a 
great  gray  sea  of  stretched  paper  he  had  given  shape 
to  one  of  the  innumerable  fancies  which  possessed  his 
brain.  No  one  had  ever  taught  him  anything;  colors 
he  had  no  means  to  buy;  he  had  gone  without  bread 
many  a  time  to  procure  even  the  few  rude  vehicles  that 
he  had  here;  and  it  was  only  in  black  or  white  that  he 
could  fashion  the  things  he  saw.  This  great  figure  which 
he  had  drawn  here  in  chalk  was  only  an  old  man  sitting 
on  a  fallen  tree,  —  only  that.  He  had  seen  old  Michel 
the  woodman  sitting  so  at  evening  many  a  time.  He 
had  never  had  a  soul  to  tell  him  of  outline  or  perspec- 
tive, of  anatomy  or  of  shadow,  and  yet  he  had  given  all 
the  weary,  worn-out  age,  all  the  sad,  quiet  patience, 
all  the  rugged,  careworn  pathos  of  his  original,  and 
given  them  so  that  the  old  lonely  figure  was  a  poem, 
sitting  there,  meditative  and  alone,  on  the  dead  tree, 
with  the  darkness  of  the  descending  night  behind 
him. 

It  was  rude,  of  course,  in  a  way,  and  had  many 
faults,  no  doubt;  and  yet  it  was  real,  true  in  Nature, 
true  in  Art,  and  very  mournful,  and  in  a  manner  beau- 
tiful. 

Patrasche  had   lain  quiet  countless  hours  watching 

164 


A   DOG   OF  FLANDERS 

its  gradual  creation  after  the  labor  of  each  day  was 
done,  and  he  knew  that  Nello  had  a  hope  —  vain  and 
wide  perhaps,  but  strongly  cherished  —  of  sending  this 
great  drawing  to  compete  for  a  prize  of  two  hundred 
francs  a  year  which  it  was  announced  in  Antwerp  would 
be  open  to  every  lad  of  talent,  scholar  or  peasant,  under 
eighteen,  who  would  attempt  to  win  it  with  some  un- 
aided work  of  chalk  or  pencil.  Three  of  the  foremost 
artists  in  the  town  of  Rubens  were  to  be  the  judges  and 
elect  the  victor  according  to  his  merits. 

All  the  spring  and  summer  and  autumn  Nello  had 
been  at  work  upon  this  treasure,  which,  if  triumphant, 
would  build  him  his  first  step  toward  independence 
and  the  mysteries  of  the  art  which  he  blindly,  ignorantly, 
and  yet  passionately  adored. 

He  said  nothing  to  any  one:  his  grandfather  would 
not  have  understood,  and  little  Alois  was  lost  to  him. 
Only  to  Patrasche  he  told  all,  and  whispered,  "Rubens 
would  give  it  to  me,  I  think,  if  he  knew." 

Patrasche  thought  so  too,  for  he  knew  that  Rubens 
had  loved  dogs  or  he  had  never  painted  them  with  such 
exquisite  fidelity;  and  men  who  loved  dogs  were,  as 
Patrasche  knew,  always  pitiful. 

The  drawings  were  to  go  in  on  the  first  day  of  Decem- 
ber, and  the  decision  be  given  on  the  twenty-fourth,  so 
that  he  who  should  win  might  rejoice  with  all  his  people 
at  the  Christmas  season. 

In  the  twilight  of  a  bitter  wintry  day,  and  with  a 
beating  heart,  now  quick  with  hope,  now  faint  with  fear, 
Nello  placed  the  great  picture  on  his  little  green  milk- 
cart,  and  took  it,  with  the  help  of  Patrasche,  into  the 

165 


MODERN   STORIES 

town,  and  there  left  it,  as  enjoined,  at  the  doors  of  a 
public  building. 

"Perhaps  it  is  worth  nothing  at  all.  How  can  I  tell  ?" 
he  thought,  with  the  heart-sickness  of  a  great  timidity. 
Now  that  he  had  left  it  there,  it  seemed  to  him  so  haz- 
ardous, so  vain,  so  foolish,  to  dream  that  he,  a  little  lad 
with  bare  feet,  who  barely  knew  his  letters,  could  do  any- 
thing at  which  great  painters,  real  artists,  could  ever 
deign  to  look.  Yet  he  took  heart  as  he  went  by  the  ca- 
thedral :  the  lordly  form  of  Rubens  seemed  to  rise  from 
the  fog  and  the  darkness,  and  to  loom  in  its  magnifi- 
cence before  him,  whilst  the  lips  with  their  kindly  smile 
seemed  to  him  to  murmur,  "Nay,  have  courage!  It 
was  not  by  a  weak  heart  and  by  faint  fears  that  I  wrote 
my  name  for  all  time  upon  Antwerp." 

Nello  ran  home  through  the  cold  night,  comforted. 
He  had  done  his  best:  the  rest  must  be  as  God  willed, 
he  thought,  in  that  innocent,  unquestioning  faith  which 
had  been  taught  him  in  the  little  gray  chapel  amongst 
the  willows  and  the  poplar  trees. 

The  winter  was  very  sharp  already.  That  night,  after 
they  had  reached  the  hut,  snow  fell;  and  fell  for  very 
many  days  after  that,  so  that  the  paths  and  the  divisions 
in  the  fields  were  all  obliterated,  and  all  the  smaller 
streams  were  frozen  over,  and  the  cold  was  intense  upon 
the  plains.  Then,  indeed,  it  became  hard  work  to  go 
round  for  the  milk  while  the  world  was  all  dark,  and 
carry  it  through  the  darkness  to  the  silent  town.  Hard 
work,  especially  for  Patrasche,  for  the  passage  of  the 
years,  that  were  only  bringing  Nello  a  stronger  youth, 
were  bringing  him  old  age,  and  his  joints  were  stiff  and 

166 


A  DOG  OF  FLANDERS 

his  bones  ached  often.  But  he  would  never  give  up  his 
share  of  the  labor.  Nello  would  fain  have  spared  him 
and  drawn  the  cart  himself,  but  Patrasche  would  not 
allow  it.  All  he  would  ever  permit  or  accept  was  the 
help  of  a  thrust  from  behind  to  the  truck  as  it  lumbered 
along  through  the  ice  ruts.  Patrasche  had  lived  in  har- 
ness, and  he  was  proud  of  it.  He  suffered  a  great  deal 
sometimes  from  frost,  and  the  terrible  roads,  and  the 
rheumatic  pains  of  his' limbs;  but  he  only  drew  his 
breath  hard  and  bent  his  stout  neck,  and  trod  onward 
with  steady  patience. 

"Rest  thee  at  home,  Patrasche,  —  it  is  time  thou 
didst  rest,  —  and  I  can  quite  well  push  in  the  cart  by 
myself,"  urged  Nello  many  a  morning;  but  Patrasche, 
who  understood  him  aright,  would  no  more  have  con- 
sented to  stay  at  home  than  a  veteran  soldier  to  shirk 
when  the  charge  was  sounding;  and  every  day  he  would 
rise  and  place  himself  in  his  shafts,  and  plod  along  over 
the  snow  through  the  fields  that  his  four  round  feet  had 
left  their  print  upon  so  many,  many  years. 

"One  must  never  rest  till  one  dies,"  thought  Pa- 
trasche; and  sometimes  it  seemed  to  him  that  that  time 
of  rest  for  him  was  not  very  far  off.  His  sight  was  less 
clear  than  it  had  been,  and  it  gave  him  pain  to  rise 
after  the  night's  sleep,  though  he  would  never  lie  a 
moment  in  his  straw  when  once  the  bell  of  the  chapel 
tolling  five  let  him  know  that  the  daybreak  of  labor 
had  begun. 

"My  poor  Patrasche,  we  shall  soon  lie  quiet  together, 
you  and  I,"  said  old  Jehan  Daas,  stretching  out  to 
stroke  the  head  of  Patrasche  with  the  old  withered  hand 

167 


MODERN   STORIES 

which  had  always  shared  with  him  its  one  poor  crust  of 
bread;  and  the  hearts  of  the  old  man  and  the  old  dog 
ached  together  with  one  thought :  When  they  were  gone, 
who  would  care  for  their  darling  ? 

VI 

One  afternoon,  as  they  came  back  from  Antwerp 
over  the  snow,  which  had  became  hard  and  smooth  as 
marble  over  all  the  Flemish  plains,  they  found  dropped 
in  the  road  a  pretty  little  puppet,  a  tambourine  player, 
all  scarlet  and  gold,  about  six  inches  high,  and,  unlike 
greater  personages  when  Fortune  lets  them  drop,  quite 
unspoiled  and  unhurt  by  its  fall.  It  was  a  pretty  toy. 
Nello  tried  to  find  its  owner,  and,  failing,  thought  that 
it  was  just  the  thing  to  please  Alois. 

It  was  quite  night  when  he  passed  the  mill-house:  he 
knew  the  little  window  of  her  room.  It  could  be  no  harm, 
he  thought,  if  he  gave  her  his  little  piece  of  treasure- 
trove,  they  had  been  playfellows  so  long.  There  was 
a  shed  with  a  sloping  roof  beneath  her  casement:  he 
climbed  it  and  tapped  softly  at  the  lattice:  there  was 
a  little  light  within.  The  child  opened  it  and  looked 
out,  half  frightened. 

Nello  put  the  tambourine  player  into  her  hands. 
"Here  is  a  doll  I  found  in  the  snow,  Alois.  Take  it," 
he  whispered,  —  "take  it,  and  God  bless  thee,  dear!" 

He  slid  down  from  the  shed  roof  before  she  had  time 
to  thank  him,  and  ran  off  through  the  darkness. 

That  night  there  was  a  fire  at  the  mill.  Outbuildings 
and  much  corn  were  destroyed,  although  the  mill  itself 

168 


A  DOG  OF  FLANDERS 

and  the  dwelling-house  were  unharmed.  All  the  village 
was  out  in  terror,  and  engines  came  tearing  through 
the  snow  from  Antwerp.  The  miller  was  insured,  and 
would  lose  nothing:  nevertheless,  he  was  in  furious 
wrath,  and  declared  aloud  that  the  fire  was  due  to  no 
accident,  but  to  some  foul  intent. 

Nello,  awakened  from  his  sleep,  ran  to  help  with  the 
rest:  Baas  Cogez  thrust  him  angrily  aside.  "Thou  wert 
loitering  here  after  dark,"  he  said  roughly.  "I  believe, 
on  my  soul,  that  thou  dost  know  more  of  the  fire  than 
any  one." 

Nello  heard  him  in  silence,  stupefied,  not  supposing 
that  any  one  could  say  such  things  except  in  jest,  and 
not  comprehending  how  any  one  could  pass  a  jest  at 
such  a  time. 

Nevertheless,  the  miller  said  the  brutal  thing  openly 
to  many  of  his  neighbors  in  the  day  that  followed;  and 
though  no  serious  charge  was  ever  preferred  against 
the  lad,  it  got  bruited  about  that  Nello  had  been  seen 
in  the  mill-yard  after  dark  on  some  unspoken  errand, 
and  that  he  bore  Baas  Cogez  a  grudge  for  forbidding 
his  intercourse  with  little  Alois;  and  so  the  hamlet, 
which  followed  the  sayings  of  its  richest  landowner 
servilely,  and  whose  families  all  hoped  to  secure  the 
riches  of  Alois  in  some  future  time  for  their  sons,  took 
the  hint  to  give  grave  looks  and  cold  words  to  old  Jehan 
Daas's  grandson.  No  one  said  anything  to  him  openly, 
but  all  the  village  agreed  together  to  humor  the  miller's 
prejudice,  and  at  the  cottages  and  farms  where  Nello 
and  Patrasche  called  every  morning  for  the  milk  for 
Antwerp,  downcast  glances  and  brief  phrases  replaced 

169 


MODERN   STORIES 

to  them  the  broad  smiles  and  cheerful  greetings  to  which 
they  had  been  always  used.  No  one  really  credited  the 
miller's  absurd  suspicions,  nor  the  outrageous  accusa- 
tions born  of  them;  but  the  people  were  all  very  poor 
and  very  ignorant,  and  the  one  rich  man  of  the  place 
had  pronounced  against  him.  Nello,  in  his  innocence 
and  his  friendlessness,  had  no  strength  to  stem  the 
popular  tide. 

"Thou  art  very  cruel  to  the  lad,"  the  miller's  wife 
dared  to  say,  weeping,  to  her  lord.  "Sure  he  is  an  inno- 
cent lad  and  a  faithful,  and  would  never  dream  of  any 
such  wickedness,  however  sore  his  heart  might  be." 

But  Baas  Cogez,  being  an  obstinate  man,  having  once 
said  a  thing,  held  to  it  doggedly,  though  in  his  innermost 
soul  he  knew  well  the  injustice  that  he  was  committing. 

Meanwhile,  Nello  endured  the  injury  done  against 
him  with  a  certain  proud  patience  that  disdained  to 
complain;  he  only  gave  way  a  little  when  he  was  quite 
alone  with  old  Patrasche.  Besides,  he  thought,  "If  it 
should  win!    They  will  be  sorry  then,  perhaps." 

Still,  to  a  boy  not  quite  sixteen,  and  who  had  dwelt 
in  one  little  world  all  his  short  life,  and  in  his  childhood 
had  been  caressed  and  applauded  on  all  sides,  it  was  a 
hard  trial  to  have  the  whole  of  that  little  world  turn 
against  him  for  naught.  Especially  hard  in  that  bleak, 
snow-bound,  famine-stricken  winter  time,  when  the 
only  light  and  warmth  there  could  be  found  abode  be- 
side the  village  hearths  and  in  the  kindly  greetings  of 
neighbors.  In  the  winter  time  all  drew  nearer  to  each 
other,  all  to  all,  except  to  Nello  and  Patrasche,  with 
whom  none  now  would  have  anything  to  do,  and  who 

170 


A  DOG  OF  FLANDERS 

were  left  to  fare  as  they  might  with  the  old  paralyzed, 
bedridden  man  in  the  little  cabin,  whose  fire  was  often 
low,  and  whose  board  was  often  without  bread,  for 
there  was  a  buyer  from  Antwerp  who  had  taken  to 
drive  his  mule  in  of  a  day  for  the  milk  of  the  various 
dairies,  and  there  were  only  three  or  four  of  the  people 
who  had  refused  his  terms  of  purchase  and  remained 
faithful  to  the  little  green  cart.  So  that  the  burden  which 
Patrasche  drew  had  become  very  light,  and  the  centime- 
pieces  in  Nello's  pouch  had  become,  alas!  very  small 
likewise. 

The  dog  would  stop,  as  usual,  at  all  the  familiar  gates 
which  were  now  closed  to  him,  and  look  up  at  them 
with  wistful,  mute  appeal;  and  it  cost  the  neighbors  a 
pang  to  shut  their  doors  and  their  hearts,  and  let  Pa- 
trasche draw  his  cart  on  again,  empty.  Nevertheless, 
they  did  it,  for  they  desired  to  please  Baas  Cogez. 

VII 

Noel  was  close  at  hand. 

The  weather  was  very  wild  and  cold.  The  snow  was 
six  feet  deep,  and  the  ice  was  firm  enough  to  bear  oxen 
and  men  upon  it  everywhere.  At  this  season  the  little 
village  was  always  gay  and  cheerful.  At  the  poorest 
dwelling  there  were  possets  and  cakes,  joking  and  danc- 
ing, sugared  saints  and  gilded  Jesus.  The  merry  Flem- 
ish bells  jingled  everywhere  on  the  horses;  everywhere 
within  doors  some  well-filled  soup-pot  sang  and  smoked 
over  the  stove;  and  everywhere  over  the  snow  without 
laughing  maidens  pattered  in  bright  kerchiefs  and  stout 

171 


MODERN  STORIES 

kirtles,  going  to  and  from  the  mass.  Only  in  the  little 
hut  it  was  very  dark  and  very  cold. 

Nello  and  Patrasche  were  left  utterly  alone,  for  one 
night  in  the  week  before  the  Christmas  Day  death  en- 
tered there,  and  took  away  from  life  forever  old  Jehan 
Daas,  who  had  never  known  of  life  aught  save  its  poverty 
and  its  pains.  He  had  long  been  half  dead,  incapable  of 
any  movement  except  a  feeble  gesture,  and  powerless  for 
anything  beyond  a  gentle  word;  and  yet  his  loss  fell  on 
them  both  with  a  great  horror  in  it;  they  mourned  him 
passionately.  He  had  passed  away  from  them  in  his 
sleep,  and  when  in  the  gray  dawn  they  learned  their  be- 
reavement, unutterable  solitude  and  desolation  seemed 
to  close  around  them.  He  had  long  been  only  a  poor, 
feeble,  paralyzed  old  man,  who  could  not  raise  a  hand 
in  their  defense;  but  he  had  loved  them  well;  his  smile 
had  always  welcomed  their  return.  They  mourned  for 
him  unceasingly,  refusing  to  be  comforted,  as  in  the 
white  winter  day  they  followed  the  deal  shell  that  held 
his  body  to  the  nameless  grave  by  the  little  gray  church. 
They  were  his  only  mourners,  these  two  whom  he  had 
left  friendless  upon  earth,  —  the  young  boy  and  the  old 
dog. 

"Surely,  he  will  relent  now  and  let  the  poor  lad  come 
hither?"  thought  the  miller's  wife,  glancing  at  her  hus- 
band where  he  smoked  by  the  hearth. 

Baas  Cogez  knew  her  thought,  but  he  hardened  his 
heart,  and  would  not  unbar  his  door  as  the  little, 
humble  funeral  went  by.  "The  boy  is  a  beggar,"  he 
said  to  himself;  "he  shall  not  be  about  Alois." 

The  woman  dared  not  say  anything  aloud,  but  when 

172 


A  DOG   OF   FLANDERS 

the  grave  was  closed  and  the  mourners  had  gone,  she 
put  a  wreath  of  immortelles  into  Alois's  hands  and  bade 
her  go  and  lay  it  reverently  on  the  dark,  unmarked 
mound  where  the  snow  was  displaced. 

Nello  and  Patrasche  went  home  with  broken  hearts. 
But  even  of  that  poor,  melancholy,  cheerless  home  they 
were  denied  the  consolation.  There  was  a  month's  rent 
overdue  for  their  little  home,  and  when  Nello  had  paid 
the  last  sad  service  to  the  dead  he  had  not  a  coin  left. 
He  went  and  begged  grace  of  the  owner  of  the  hut,  a 
cobbler  who  went  every  Sunday  night  to  drink  his  pint 
of  wine  and  smoke  with  Baas  Cogez.  The  cobbler  would 
grant  no  mercy.  He  was  a  harsh,  miserly  man,  and 
loved  money.  He  claimed  in  default  of  his  rent  every 
stick  and  stone,  every  pot  and  pan,  in  the  hut,  and  bade 
Nello  and  Patrasche  be  out  of  it  on  the  morrow. 

Now,  the  cabin  was  lowly  enough,  and  in  some  sense 
miserable  enough,  and  yet  their  hearts  clove  to  it  with 
a  great  affection.  They  had  been  so  happy  there,  and 
in  the  summer,  with  its  clambering  vine  and  its  flower- 
ing beans,  it  was  so  pretty  and  bright  in  the  midst  of  the 
sun-lighted  fields !  Their  life  in  it  had  been  full  of  labor 
and  privation,  and,  yet  they  had  been  so  well  content, 
so  gay  of  heart,  running  together  to  meet  the  old  man's 
never-failing  smile  of  welcome! 

All  night  long  the  boy  and  the  dog  sat  by  the  fireless 
hearth  in  the  darkness,  drawn  close  together  for  warmth 
and  sorrow.  Their  bodies  were  insensible  to  the  cold, 
but  their  hearts  seemed  frozen  in  them. 

When  the  morning  broke  over  the  white,  chill  earth, 
it  was  the  morning  of  Christmas  Eve.  With  a  shudder, 

173 


MODERN   STORIES 

Nello  clasped  close  to  him  his  only  friend,  while  his 
tears  fell  hot  and  fast  on  the  dog's  frank  forehead.  "Let 
us  go,  Patrasche,  —  dear,  dear  Patrasche,"  he  mur- 
mured.   "We  will  not  wait  to  be  kicked  out:  let  us  go." 

Patrasche  had  no  will  but  his,  and  they  went  sadly, 
side  by  side,  out  from  the  little  place  which  was  so  dear 
to  them  both,  and  in  which  every  humble,  homely  thing 
was  to  them  precious  and  beloved.  Patrasche  drooped 
his  head  wearily  as  he  passed  by  his  own  green  cart;  it 
was  no  longer  his,  —  it  had  to  go  with  the  rest  to  pay 
the  rent,  and  his  brass  harness  lay  idle  and  glittering 
on  the  snow.  The  dog  could  have  lain  down  beside  it 
and  died  for  very  heart-sickness  as  he  went,  but  whilst 
the  lad  lived  and  needed  him  Patrasche  would  not 
yield  and  give  way. 

They  took  the  old  accustomed  road  into  Antwerp. 
The  day  had  yet  scarce  more  than  dawned,  most  of  the 
shutters  were  still  closed,  but  some  of  the  villagers  were 
about.  They  took  no  notice  whilst  the  dog  and  the  boy 
passed  by  them.  At  one  door  Nello  paused  and  looked 
wistfully  within:  his  grandfather  had  done  many  a 
kindly  turn  in  neighbor's  service  to  the  people  who 
dwelt  there.  , 

"Would  you  give  Patrasche  a  crust  ? "  he  said  timidly. 
"He  is  old,  and  he  has  had  nothing  since  last  forenoon." 

The  woman  shut  the  door  hastily,  murmuring  some 
vague  saying  about  wheat  and  rye  being  very  dear  that 
season.  The  boy  and  the  dog  went  on  again  wearily: 
they  asked  no  more. 

By  slow  and  painful  ways  they  reached  Antwerp  as 
the  chimes  tolled  ten. 

174 


A  DOG   OF   FLANDERS 

"If  I  had  anything  about  me  I  could  sell  to  get  him 
bread!"  thought  Nello,  but  he  had  nothing  except  the 
wisp  of  linen  and  serge  that  covered  him,  and  his  pair 
of  wooden  shoes. 

Patrasche  understood,  and  nestled  his  nose  into  the 
lad's  hand,  as  though  to  pray  him  not  to  be  disquieted 
for  any  woe  or  want  of  his. 

The  winner  of  the  drawing  prize  was  to  be  proclaimed 
at  noon,  and  to  the  public  building  where  he  had  left  his 
treasure  Nello  made  his  way.  On  the  steps  and  in  the 
entrance-hall  was  a  crowd  of  youths,  —  some  of  his 
age,  some  older,  all  with  parents  or  relatives  or  friends. 
His  heart  was  sick  with  fear  as  he  went  amongst  them, 
holding  Patrasche  close  to  him.  The  great  bells  of  the 
city  clashed  out  the  hour  of  noon  with  brazen  clamor. 
The  doors  of  the  inner  hall  were  opened;  the  eager, 
panting  throng  rushed  in;  it  was  known  that  the  se- 
lected picture  would  be  raised  above  the  rest  upon  a 
wooden  dais. 

A  mist  obscured  Nello 's  sight,  his  head  swam,  his 
limbs  almost  failed  him.  When  his  vision  cleared  he 
saw  the  drawing  raised  on  high :  it  was  not  his  own !  A 
slow,  sonorous  voice  was  proclaiming  aloud  that  victory 
had  been  adjudged  to  Stephan  Kiesslinger,  born  in  the 
burgh  of  Antwerp,  son  of  a  wharfinger  in  that  town. 

When  Nello  recovered  his  consciousness  he  was  lying 
on  the  stones  without,  and  Patrasche  was  trying  with 
every  art  he  knew  to  call  him  back  to  life.  In  the  dis- 
tance a  throng  of  the  youths  of  Antwerp  were  shouting 
around  their  successful  comrade,  and  escorting  him 
with  acclamations  to  his  home  upon  the  quay. 

175 


MODERN   STORIES 

The  boy  staggered  to  his  feet  and  drew  the  dog  into 
his  embrace.  "It  is  all  over,  dear  Patrasche,"  he  mur- 
mured, —  "all  over!" 

He  rallied  himself  as  best  he  could,  for  he  was  weak 
from  fasting,  and  retraced  his  steps  to  the  village.  Pa- 
trasche paced  by  his  side  with  his  head  drooping  and 
his  old  limbs  feeble  from  hunger  and  sorrow. 

VIII 

The  snow  was  falling  fast;  a  keen  hurricane  blew 
from  the  north;  it  was  bitter  as  death  on  the  plains.  It 
took  them  long  to  traverse  the  familiar  path,  and  the 
bells  were  sounding  four  of  the  clock  as  they  approached 
the  hamlet.  Suddenly  Patrasche  paused,  arrested  by 
a  scent  in  the  snow,  scratched,  whined,  and  drew  out 
with  his  teeth  a  small  case  of  brown  leather.  He  held 
it  up  to  Nello  in  the  darkness.  Where  they  were  there 
stood  a  little  Calvary,  and  a  lamp  burned  dully  under 
the  cross:  the  boy  mechanically  turned  the  case  to  the 
light;  on  it  was  the  name  of  Baas  Cogez,  and  within  it 
were  notes  for  two  thousand  francs. 

The  sight  roused  the  lad  a  little  from  his  stupor.  He 
thrust  it  in  his  shirt,  and  stroked  Patrasche  and  drew 
him  onward.    The  dog  looked  up  wistfully  in  his  face. 

Nello  made  straight  for  the  mill-house,  and  went  to 
the  house-door  and  struck  on  its  panels.  The  miller's 
wife  opened  it  weeping,  with  little  Alois  clinging  close  to 
her  skirts.  "Is  it  thee,  thou  poor  lad  ?"  she  said  kindly 
through  her  tears.  "Get  thee  gone  ere  the  Baas  see 
thee.  We  are  in  sore  trouble  to-night.   He  is  out  seeking 

176 


A  DOG   OF  FLANDERS 

for  a  power  of  money  that  he  has  let  fall  riding  home- 
ward, and  in  this  snow  he  never  will  find  it;  and  God 
knows  it  will  go  nigh  to  ruin  us.  It  is  Heaven's  own 
judgment  for  the  things  we  have  done  to  thee." 

Nello  put  the  note-case  in  her  hand  and  called  Pa- 
trasche  within  the  house.  "Patrasche  found  the  money 
to-night,"  he  said  quickly.  "Tell  Baas  Cogez  so;  I 
think  he  will  not  deny  the  dog  shelter  and  food  in  his 
old  age.  Keep  him  from  pursuing  me,  and  I  pray  of 
you  to  be  good  to  him." 

Ere  either  woman  or  dog  knew  what  he  meant  he 
had  stooped  and  kissed  Patrasche :  then  closed  the  door 
hurriedly,  and  disappeared  in  the  gloom  of  the  fast- 
falling  night. 

The  woman  and  the  child  stood  speechless  with  joy 
and  fear :  Patrasche  vainly  spent  the  fury  of  his  anguish 
against  the  iron-bound  oak  of  the  barred  house-door. 
They  did  not  dare  unbar  the  door  and  let  him  forth: 
they  tried  all  they  could  to  solace  him.  They  brought 
him  sweet  cakes  and  juicy  meats;  they  tempted  him 
with  the  best  they  had;  they  tried  to  lure  him  to  abide 
by  the  warmth  of  the  hearth;  but  it  was  of  no  avail. 
Patrasche  refused  to  be  comforted  or  to  stir  from  the 
barred  portal. 

It  was  six  o'clock  when  from  an  opposite  entrance 
the  miller  at  last  came,  jaded  and  broken,  into  his  wife's 
presence.  "It  is  lost  forever,"  he  said,  with  an  ashen 
cheek  and  a  quiver  in  his  stern  voice.  "We  have  looked 
with  lanterns  everywhere :  it  is  gone,  —  the  little  maid- 
en's portion  and  all!" 

His  wife  put  the  money  into  his  hand,  and  told  him 

177 


MODERN  STORIES 

how  it  had  come  to  her.  The  strong  man  sank  trem- 
bling into  a  seat  and  covered  his  face,  ashamed  and  al- 
most afraid.  "I  have  been  cruel  to  the  lad,"  he  muttered 
at  length;  "I  deserved  not  to  have  good  at  his  hands." 

Little  Alois,  taking  courage,  crept  close  to  her  father 
and  nestled  against  him  her  fair  curly  head.  "Nello 
may  come  here  again,  father?"  she  whispered.  "He 
may  come  to-morrow  as  he  used  to  do?" 

The  miller  pressed  her  in  his  arms :  his  hard,  sunburnt 
face  was  very  pale,  and  his  mouth  trembled.  "Surely, 
surely,"  he  answered  his  child.  "He  shall  bide  here  on 
Christmas  Day,  and  any  other  day  he  will.  God  help- 
ing me,  I  will  make  amends  to  the  boy,  —  I  will  make 
amends." 

Little  Alois  kissed  him  in  gratitude  and  joy,  then  slid 
from  his  knees  and  ran  to  where  the  dog  kept  watch 
by  the  door.  "And  to-night  I  may  feast  Patrasche?" 
she  cried,  in  a  child's  thoughtless  glee. 

Her  father  bent  his  head  gravely:  "Ay,  ay,  let  the 
dog  have  the  best;"  for  the  stern  old  man  was  moved 
and  shaken  to  his  heart's  depths. 

It  was  Christmas  Eve,  and  the  mill-house  was  filled 
with  oak  logs  and  squares  of  turf,  with  cream  and  honey, 
with  meat  and  bread,  and  the  rafters  were  hung  with 
wreaths  of  evergreen,  and  the  Calvary  and  the  cuckoo 
clock  looked  out  from  a  mass  of  holly.  There  were  little 
paper  lanterns  too  for  Alois,  and  toys  of  various  fash- 
ions and  sweetmeats  in  bright-pictured  papers.  There 
were  light  and  warmth  and  abundance  everywhere,  and 
the  child  would  fain  have  made  the  dog  a  guest  hon- 
ored and  feasted. 

178 


A  DOG   OF  FLANDERS 

But  Patrasche  would  neither  lie  in  the  warmth  nor 
share  in  the  cheer.  Famished  he  was  and  very  cold, 
but  without  Nello  he  would  partake  neither  of  comfort 
nor  food.  Against  all  temptation  he  was  proof,  and 
close  against  the  door  he  leaned  always,  watching  only 
for  a  means  of  escape. 

"He  wants  the  lad,"  said  Baas  Cogez.  "Good  dog! 
good  dog !  I  will  go  over  to  the  lad  the  first  thing  at  day- 
dawn."  For  no  one  but  Patrasche  knew  that  Nello  had 
left  the  hut,  and  no  one  but  Patrasche  divined  that  Nello 
had  gone  to  face  starvation  and  misery  alone. 

The  mill  kitchen  was  very  warm;  great  logs  crackled 
and  flamed  on  the  hearth ;  neighbors  came  in  for  a  glass 
of  wine  and  a  slice  of  the  fat  goose  baking  for  supper. 
xAlois,  gleeful  and  sure  of  her  playmate  back  on  the 
morrow,  bounded  and  sang  and  tossed  back  her  yellow 
hair.  Baas  Cogez,  in  the  fullness  of  his  heart,  smiled  on 
her  through  moistened  eyes,  and  spoke  of  the  way  in 
which  he  would  befriend  her  favorite  companion;  the 
house-mother  sat  with  calm,  contented  face  at  the  spin- 
ning-wheel; the  cuckoo  in  the  clock  chirped  mirthful 
hours.  Amidst  it  all  Patrasche  was  bidden  with  a  thou- 
sand words  of  welcome  to  tarry  there  a  cherished  guest. 
But  neither  peace  nor  plenty  could  allure  him  where 
Nello  was  not. 

When  the  supper  smoked  on  the  board,  and  the 
voices  were  loudest  and  gladdest,  and  the  Christ-child 
brought  choicest  gifts  to  Alois,  Patrasche,  watching 
always  an  occasion,  glided  out  when  the  door  was  un- 
latched by  a  careless  newcomer,  and  as  swiftly  as  his 
weak  and  tired  limbs  would  bear  him  sped  over  the 
*  179 


MODERN   STORIES 

»now  in  the  bitter,  black  night.  He  had  only  one  thought, 
■ —  to  follow  Nello.  A  human  friend  might  have  paused 
for  the  pleasant  meal,  the  cheery  warmth,  the  cosy  slum- 
ber; but  that  was  not  the  friendship  of  Patrasche.  He 
remembered  a  bygone  time,  when  an  old  man  and  a 
little  child  had  found  him  sick  unto  death  in  the  way- 
side ditch. 

Snow  had  fallen  freshly  all  the  evening  long;  it  was 
now  nearly  ten;  the  trail  of  the  boy's  footsteps  was 
almost  obliterated.  It  took  Patrasche  long  to  discover 
any  scent.  When  at  last  he  found  it,  it  was  lost  again 
quickly,  and  lost  and  recovered,  and  again  lost  and 
again  recovered,  a  hundred  times  or  more. 

The  night  was  very  wild.  The  lamps  under  the  way- 
side crosses  were  blown  out;  the  roads  were  sheets  of 
ice;  the  impenetrable  darkness  hid  every  trace  of  hab- 
itations; there  was  no  living  thing  abroad.  All  the 
cattle  were  housed,  and  in  all  the  huts  and  homesteads 
men  and  women  rejoiced  and  feasted.  There  was  only 
Patrasche  out  in  the  cruel  cold,  —  old  and  famished 
and  full  of  pain,  but  with  the  strength  and  the  patience 
of  a  great  love  to  sustain  him  in  his  search. 

The  trail  of  Nello's  steps,  faint  and  obscure  as  it  was 
under  the  new  snow,  went  straightly  along  the  accus- 
tomed tracks  into  Antwerp.  It  was  past  midnight  when 
Patrasche  traced  it  over  the  boundaries  of  the  town  and 
into  the  narrow,  tortuous,  gloomy  streets.  It  was  all 
quite  dark  in  the  town,  save  where  some  light  gleamed 
ruddily  through  the  crevices  of  house  shutters,  or  some 
group  went  homeward  with  lanterns,  chanting  drinking 
songs.     The  streets  were  all  white  with  ice;  the  high 

180 


A  DOG  OF  FLANDERS 

walls  and  roofs  loomed  black  against  them.  There  was 
scarce  a  sound  save  the  riot  of  the  winds  down  the  pas- 
sages as  they  tossed  the  creaking  signs  and  shook  the 
tall  lamp-irons. 

So  many  passers-by  had  trodden  through  and  through 
the  snow,  so  many  diverse  paths  had  crossed  and  re- 
crossed  each  other,  that  the  dog  had  a  hard  task  to  re- 
tain any  hold  on  the  track  he  followed.  But  he  kept  on 
his  way,  though  the  cold  pierced  him  to  the  bone,  and 
the  jagged  ice  cut  his  feet,  and  the  hunger  in  his  body 
gnawed  like  a  rat's  teeth.  He  kept  on  his  way,  a  poor 
gaunt,  shivering  thing,  and  by  long  patience  traced  the 
steps  he  loved  into  the  very  heart  of  the  burgh  and  up 
to  the  steps  of  the  great  cathedral. 

"He  is  gone  to  the  things  that  he  loved,"  thought 
Patrasche:  he  could  not  understand,  but  he  was  full  of 
sorrow  and  of  pity  for  the  art  passion  that  to  him  was 
so  incomprehensible  and  yet  so  sacred. 

The  portals  of  the  cathedral  were  unclosed  after  the 
midnight  mass.  Some  heedlessness  in  the  custodians, 
too  eager  to  go  home  and  feast  or  sleep,  or  too  drowsy 
to  know  whether  they  turned  the  keys  aright,  had  left 
one  of  the  doors  unlocked.  By  that  accident  the  foot- 
falls Patrasche  sought  had  passed  through  into  the 
building,  leaving  the  white  marks  of  snow  upon  the 
dark  stone  floor.  By  that  slender  white  thread,  frozen 
as  it  fell,  he  was  guided  through  the  intense  silence, 
through  the  immensity  of  the  vaulted  space,  —  guided 
straight  to  the  gates  of  the  chancel,  and,  stretched  there 
upon  the  stones,  he  found  Nello.  He  crept  up  and 
touched  the  face  of  the  boy.    "Didst  thou  dream  that 

181 


MODERN   STORIES 

I  should  be  faithless  and  forsake  thee  ?  I  —  a  dog  ?  " 
said  that  mute  caress. 

The  lad  raised  himself  with  a  low  cry  and  clasped 
him  close.  "Let  us  lie  down  and  die  together,"  he 
murmured.  "Men  have  no  need  of  us,  and  we  are  all 
alone." 

In  answer,  Patrasche  crept  closer  yet,  and  laid  his 
head  upon  the  young  boy's  breast.  The  great  tears 
stood  in  his  brown,  sad  eyes:  not  for  himself, — for 
himself  he  was  happy. 

They  lay  close  together  in  the  piercing  cold.  The 
blasts  that  blew  over  the  Flemish  dikes  from  the  north- 
ern seas  were  like  waves  of  ice,  which  froze  every  living 
thing  they  touched.  The  interior  of  the  immense  vault 
of  stone  in  which  they  were  was  even  more  bitterly 
chill  than  the  snow-covered  plains  without.  Now  and 
then  a  bat  moved  in  the  shadows,  —  now  and  then  a 
gleam  of  light  came  on  the  ranks  of  carven  figures. 
Under  the  Rubens  they  lay  together  quite  still,  and 
soothed  almost  into  a  dreaming  slumber  by  the  numb- 
ing narcotic  of  the  cold.  Together  they  dreamed  of  the 
old  glad  days  when  they  had  chased  each  other  through 
the  flowering  grasses  of  the  summer  meadows,  or  sat 
hidden  in  the  tall  bulrushes  by  the  water's  side,  watch- 
ing the  boats  go  seaward  in  the  sun. 

Suddenly  through  the  darkness  a  great  white  radi- 
ance streamed  through  the  vastness  of  the  aisles;  the 
moon,  that  was  at  her  height,  had  broken  through  the 
clouds,  the  snow  had  ceased  to  fall,  the  light  reflected 
from  the  snow  without  was  clear  as  the  light  of  dawn. 
It  fell  through  the  arches  full  upon  the  two  pictures 

182 


A  DOG  OF  FLANDERS 

above,  from  which  the  boy  on  his  entrance  had  flung 
back  the  veil;  the  Elevation  and  the  Descent  from  the 
Cross  were  for  one  instant  visible. 

Nello  rose  to  his  feet  and  stretched  his  arms  to  them : 
the  tears  of  a  passionate  ecstasy  glistened  on  the  pale- 
ness of  his  face.  "I  have  seen  them  at  last!"  he  cried 
aloud.    "O  God,  it  is  enough!" 

His  limbs  failed  under  him,  and  he  sank  upon  his 
knees,  still  gazing  upward  at  the  majesty  that  he  adored. 
For  a  few  brief  moments  the  light  illumined  the  divine 
visions  that  had  been  denied  to  him  so  long,  —  light 
clear  and  sweet  and  strong  as  though  it  streamed  from 
the  throne  of  Heaven.  Then  suddenly  it  passed  away: 
once  more  a  great  darkness  covered  the  face  of  Christ. 

The  arms  of  the  boy  drew  close  again  the  body  of 
the  dog.  "We  shall  see  His  face  —  there"  he  mur- 
mured; "and  He  will  not  part  us,  I  think." 

On  the  morrow,  by  the  chancel  of  the  cathedral,  the 
people  of  Antwerp  found  them  both.  They  were  both 
dead:  the  cold  of  the  night  had  frozen  into  stillness 
alike  the  young  life  and  the  old.  When  the  Christmas 
morning  broke  and  the  priests  came  to  the  temple,  they 
saw  them  lying  thus  on  the  stones  together.  Above,  the 
veils  were  drawn  back  from  the  great  visions  of  Rubens, 
and  the  fresh  rays  of  the  sunrise  touched  the  thorn- 
crowned  head  of  the  Christ. 

As  the  day  grew  on  there  came  an  old,  hard-featured 
man  who  wept  as  women  weep.  "I  was  cruel  to  the 
lad,"  he  muttered,  "and  now  I  would  have  made  amends 
—  yea,  to  the  half  of  my  substance  —  and  he  should 
have  been  to  me  as  a  son." 

183 


MODERN   STORIES 

There  came  also,  as  the  day  grew  apace,  a  painter 
who  had  fame  in  the  world,  and  who  was  liberal  of  hand 
and  of  spirit.  "I  seek  one  who  should  have  had  the 
prize  yesterday  had  worth  won,"  he  said  to  the  people, 
—  "a  boy  of  rare  promise  and  genius.  An  old  wood- 
cutter on  a  fallen  tree  at  eventide,  —  that  was  all  his 
theme.  But  there  was  greatness  for  the  future  in  it.  I 
would  fain  find  him,  and  take  him  with  me  and  teach 
him  Art." 

And  a  little  child  with  curling  fair  hair,  sobbing  bit- 
terly as  she  clung  to  her  father's  arm,  cried  aloud,  "O 
Nello,  come !  We  have  all  ready  for  thee.  The  Christ- 
child's  hands  are  full  of  gifts,  and  the  old  piper  will 
play  for  us ;  and  the  mother  says  thou  shalt  stay  by  the 
hearth  and  burn  nuts  with  us  all  the  Noel  week  long,  — 
yes,  even  to  the  Feast  of  the  Kings !  And  Patrasche  will 
be  so  happy!    O  Nello,  wake  and  come!" 

But  the  young  pale  face,  turned  upward  to  the  light 
of  the  great  Rubens  with  a  smile  upon  its  mouth,  an- 
swered them  all,  "It  is  too  late." 

For  the  sweet,  sonorous  bells  went  ringing  through 
the  frost,  and  the  sunlight  shone  upon  the  plains  of 
snow,  and  the  populace  trooped  gay  and  glad  through 
the  streets,  but  Nello  and  Patrasche  no  more  asked 
charity  at  their  hands.  All  they  needed  now  Antwerp 
gave  unbidden. 

Death  had  been  more  pitiful  to  them  than  longer 
life  would  have  been.  It  had  taken  the  one  in  the  loyalty 
of  love,  and  the  other  in  the  innocence  of  faith,  from 
a  world  which  for  love  has  no  recompense  and  for  faith 
no  fulfillment. 

184 


A  DOG  OF  FLANDERS 

All  their  lives  they  had  been  together,  and  in  their 
deaths  they  were  not  divided;  for  when  they  were 
found,  the  arms  of  the  boy  were  folded  too  closely 
around  the  dog  to  be  severed  without  violence,  and  the 
people  of  their  little  village,  contrite  and  ashamed,  im- 
plored a  special  grace  for  them,  and,  making  them  one 
grave,  laid  them  to  rest  there  side  by  side  —  forever ! 


RIP  VAN  WINKLE 

By  Washington  Irving 

WHOEVER  has  made  a  voyage  up  the  Hud- 
son must  remember  the  Kaatskill  Mountains. 
They  are  a  dismembered  branch  of  the  great  Appa- 
lachian family,  and  are  seen  away  to  the  west  of  the 
river,  swelling  up  to  a  noble  height,  and  lording  it  over 
the  surrounding  country.  Every  change  of  season,  every 
change  of  weather,  indeed,  every  hour  of  the  day,  pro- 
duces some  change  in  the  magical  hues  and  shapes  of 
these  mountains,  and  they  are  regarded  by  all  the  good 
wives,  far  and  near,  as  perfect  barometers.  When  the 
weather  is  fair  and  settled,  they  are  clothed  in  blue  and 
purple,  and  print  their  bold  outlines  on  the  clear  evening 
sky;  but  sometimes  when  the  rest  of  the  landscape  is 
cloudless,  they  will  gather  a  hood  of  gray  vapors  about 
their  summits,  which,  in  the  last  rays  of  the  setting  sun, 
will  glow  and  light  up  like  a  crown  of  glory. 

At  the  foot  of  these  fairy  mountains,  the  voyager 
may  have  descried  the  light  smoke  curling  up  from  a 
village,  whose  shingle  roofs  gleam  among  the  trees, 
just  where  the  blue  tints  of  the  upland  melt  away  into 
the  fresh  green  of  the  nearer  landscape.  It  is  a  little 
village  of  great  antiquity,  having  been  founded  by  some 
of  the  Dutch  colonists  in  the  early  time  of  the  province, 
just  about  the  beginning  of  the  government  of  the  good 

186 


RIP  VAN  WINKLE 

Peter  Stuyvesant,  (may  he  rest  in  peace!)  and  there 
w,ere  some  of  the  houses  of  the  original  settlers  stand- 
ing within  a  few  years,  built  of  small  yellow  bricks 
brought  from  Holland,  having  latticed  windows  and 
gable  fronts,  surmounted  with  weathercocks. 

In  that  same  village,  and  in  one  of  these  very  houses 
(which,  to  tell  the  precise  truth,  was  sadly  time-worn 
and  weather-beaten),  there  lived  many  years  since, 
while  the  country  was  yet  a  province  of  Great  Britain, 
a  simple,  good-natured  fellow,  of  the  name  of  Rip  Van 
Winkle.  He  was  a  descendant  of  the  Van  Winkles  who 
figured  so  gallantly  in  the  chivalrous  days  of  Peter 
Stuyvesant,  and  accompanied  him  to  the  siege  of  Fort 
Christina.  He  inherited,  however,  but  little  of  the  mar- 
tial character  of  his  ancestors.  I  have  observed  that 
he  was  a  simple,  good-natured  man;  he  was,  moreover, 
a  kind  neighbor,  and  an  obedient,  henpecked  husband. 
Indeed,  to  the  latter  circumstance  might  be  owing  that 
meekness  of  spirit  which  gained  him  such  universal 
popularity ;  for  those  men  are  most  apt  to  be  obsequious 
and  conciliating  abroad,  who  are  under  the  discipline 
of  shrews  at  home.  Their  tempers,  doubtless,  are  ren- 
dered pliant  and  malleable  in  the  fiery  furnace  of  do- 
mestic tribulation;  and  a  curtain  lecture  is  worth  all 
the  sermons  in  the  world  for  teaching  the  virtues  of 
patience  and  long-suffering.  A  termagant  wife  may, 
therefore,  in  some  respects  be  considered  a  tolerable 
blessing,  and  if  so,  Rip  Van  Winkle  was  thrice  blessed. 

Certain  it  is,  that  he  was  a  great  favorite  among  all 
the  good  wives  of  the  village,  who,  as  usual  with  the 
amiable  sex,  took  his  part  in  all  family  squabbles;  and 

187 


MODERN   STORIES 

never  failed,  whenever  they  talked  those  matters  over  in 
their  evening  gossipings,  to  lay  all  the  blame  on  Dame 
Van  Winkle.  The  children  of  the  village,  too,  would 
shout  with  joy  whenever  he  approached.  He  assisted 
at  their  sports,  made  their  playthings,  taught  them  to 
fly  kites  and  shoot  marbles,  and  told  them  long  stories 
of  ghosts,  witches,  and  Indians.  Whenever  he  went 
dodging  about  the  village,  he  was  surrounded  by  a 
troop  of  them,  hanging  on  his  skirts,  clambering  on  his 
back,  and  playing  a  thousand  tricks  on  him  with  im- 
punity; and  not  a  dog  would  bark  at  him  throughout 
the  neighborhood. 

The  great  error  in  Rip's  composition  was  an  insu- 
perable aversion  to  all  kinds  of  profitable  labor.  It 
could  not  be  from  the  want  of  assiduity  or  perseverance ; 
for  he  would  sit  on  a  wet  rock,  with  a  rod  as  long  and 
heavy  as  a  Tartar's  lance,  and  fish  all  day  without  a 
murmur,  even  though  he  should  not  be  encouraged  by 
a  single  nibble.  He  would  carry  a  fowling-piece  on  his 
shoulder  for  hours  together,  trudging  through  woods  and 
swamps,  and  up  hill  and  down  dale,  to  shoot  a  few 
squirrels  or  wild  pigeons.  He  would  never  refuse  to 
assist  a  neighbor,  even  in  the  roughest  toil,  and  was  a 
foremost  man  at  all  country  frolics  for  husking  Indian 
corn,  or  building  stone  fences;  the  women  of  the  vil- 
lage, too,  used  to  employ  him  to  run  their  errands,  and 
to  do  such  little  odd  jobs  as  their  less  obliging  husbands 
would  not  do  for  them.  In  a  word,  Rip  was  ready  to 
attend  to  anybody's  business  but  his  own ;  but  as  to  do- 
ing family  duty,  and  keeping  his  farm  in  order,  he  found 
it  impossible. 

188 


RIP  VAN  WINKLE 

In  fact,  he  declared  it  was  of  no  use  to  work  on  his 
farm;  it  was  the  most  pestilent  little  piece  of  ground 
in  the  whole  country;  everything  about  it  went  wrong, 
and  would  go  wrong,  in  spite  of  him.  His  fences  were 
continually  falling  to  pieces  his  cow  would  either  go 
astray  or  get  among  the  cabbages;  weeds  were  sure 
to  grow  quicker  in  his  fields  than  anywhere  else;  the 
rain  always  made  a  point  of  setting  in  just  as  he  had 
some  out-door  work  to  do;  so  that  though  his  patri- 
monial estate  had  dwindled  away  under  his  manage- 
ment, acre  by  acre,  until  there  was  little  more  left  than 
a  mere  patch  of  Indian  corn  and  potatoes,  yet  it  was  the 
worst-conditioned  farm  in  the  neighborhood. 

His  children,  too,  were  as  ragged  and  wild  as  if  they 
belonged  to  nobody.  His  son  Rip,  an  urchin  begotten 
in  his  own  likeness,  promised  to  inherit  the  habits,  with 
the  old  clothes  of  his  father.  He  was  generally  seen 
trooping  like  a  colt  at  his  mother's  heels,  equipped  in 
a  pair  of  his  father's  cast-off  galligaskins,  which  he  had 
much  ado  to  hold  up  with  one  hand,  as  a  fine  lady  does 
her  train  in  bad  weather. 

Rip  Van  Winkle,  however,  was  one  of  those  happy 
mortals,  of  foolish,  well-oiled  dispositions,  who  take 
the  world  easy,  eat  white  bread  or  brown,  whichever 
can  be  got  with  least  thought  or  trouble,  and  would 
rather  starve  on  a  penny  than  work  for  a  pound.  If  left 
to  himself,  he  would  have  whistled  life  away  in  perfect 
contentment;  but  his  wife  kept  continually  dinning  in 
his  ears  about  his  idleness,  his  carelessness,  and  the 
ruin  he  was  bringing  on  his  family.  Morning,  noon, 
and  night  her  tongue  was  incessantly  going,  and  every- 

189 


MODERN   STORIES 

thing  he  said  or  did  was  sure  to  produce  a  torrent  of 
household  eloquence.  Rip  had  but  one  way  of  reply- 
ing to  all  lectures  of  the  kind,  and  that,  by  frequent 
use,  had  grown  into  a  habit.  He  shrugged  his  shoul- 
ders, shook  his  head,  cast  up  his  eyes,  but  said  nothing. 
This,  however,  always  provoked  a  fresh  volley  from  his 
wife;  so  that  he  was  fain  to  draw  off  his  forces,  and 
take  to  the  outside  of  the  house  —  the  only  side  which, 
in  truth,  belongs  to  a  henpecked  husband. 

Rip's  sole  domestic  adherent  was  his  dog  Wolf,  who 
was  as  much  henpecked  as  his  master;  for  Dame  Van 
Winkle  regarded  them  as  companions  in  idleness,  and 
even  looked  upon  Wolf  with  an  evil  eye,  as  the  cause 
of  his  master's  going  so  often  astray.  True  it  is,  in  all 
points  of  spirit  befitting  an  honorable  dog,  he  was  as 
courageous  an  animal  as  ever  scoured  the  woods  — 
but  what  courage  can  withstand  the  ever-during  and 
all-besetting  terrors  of  a  woman's  tongue  ?  The  mo- 
ment Wolf  entered  the  house  his  crest  fell,  his  tail 
drooped  to  the  ground,  or  curled  between  his  legs,  he 
sneaked  about  with  a  gallows  air,  casting  many  a  side- 
long glance  at  Dame  Van  Winkle,  and  at  the  least  flour- 
ish of  a  broomstick  or  ladle  he  would  fly  to  the  door 
with  yelping  precipitation. 

Times  grew  worse  and  worse  with  Rip  Van  Winkle 
as  years  of  matrimony  rolled  on;  a  tart  temper  never 
mellows  with  age,  and  a  sharp  tongue  is  the  only  edged 
tool  that  grows  keener  with  constant  use.  For  a  long 
while  he  used  to  console  himself,  when  driven  from 
home,  by  frequenting  a  kind  of  perpetual  club  of  the 
sages,  philosophers,  and  other  idle  personages  of  the 

190 


RIP  VAN  WINKLE 

village,  which  held  its  sessions  on  a  bench  before  a 
small  inn,  designated  by  a  rubicund  portrait  of  His 
Majesty  George  the  Third.  Here  they  used  to  sit  in  the 
shade  through  a  long  lazy  summer's  day,  talking  list- 
lessly over  village  gossip,  or  telling  endless  sleepy  stories 
about  nothing.  But  it  would  have  been  worth  any 
statesman's  money  to  have  heard  the  profound  dis- 
cussions that  sometimes  took  place,  when  by  chance  an 
old  newspaper  fell  into  their  hands  from  some  passing 
traveler.  How  solemnly  they  would  listen  to  the  con- 
tents, as  drawled  out  by  Derrick  Van  Bummel,  the 
schoolmaster,  a  dapper  learned  little  man,  who  was  not 
to  be  daunted  by  the  most  gigantic  word  in  the  dic- 
tionary; and  how  sagely  they  would  deliberate  upon 
public  events  some  months  after  they  had  taken  place. 
The  opinions  of  this  junto  were  completely  controlled 
by  Nicholas  Vedder,  a  patriarch  of  the  village,  and 
landlord  of  the  inn,  at  the  door  of  which  he  took  his 
seat  from  morning  till  night,  just  moving  sufficiently  to 
avoid  the  sun  and  keep  in  the  shade  of  a  large  tree;  so 
that  the  neighbors  could  tell  the  hour  by  his  movements 
as  accurately  as  by  a  sun-dial.  It  is  true  he  was  rarely 
heard  to  speak,  but  smoked  his  pipe  incessantly.  His 
adherents,  however  (for  every  great  man  has  his  ad- 
herents), perfectly  understood  him,  and  knew  how  to 
gather  his  opinions.  When  anything  that  was  read  or 
related  displeased  him,  he  was  observed  to  smoke  his 
pipe  vehemently,  and  to  send  forth  short,  frequent,  and 
angry  puffs;  but  when  pleased,  he  would  inhale  the 
smoke  slowly  and  tranquilly,  and  emit  it  in  light  and 
placid  clouds ;  and  sometimes,  taking  the  pipe  from  his 

191 


MODERN  STORIES 

mouth,  and  letting  the  fragrant  vapor  curl  about  his 
nose,  would  gravely  nod  his  head  in  token  of  perfect 
approbation. 

From  even  this  stronghold  the  unlucky  Rip  was  at 
length  routed  by  his  termagant  wife,  who  would  sud- 
denly break  in  upon  the  tranquillity  of  the  assemblage 
and  call  the  members  all  to  naught ;  nor  was  that  august 
personage,  Nicholas  Vedder  himself,  sacred  from  the 
daring  tongue  of  this  terrible  virago,  who  charged  him 
outright  with  encouraging  her  husband  in  habits  of 
idleness. 

Poor  Rip  was  at  last  reduced  almost  to  despair; 
and  his  only  alternative,  to  escape  from  the  labor  of  the 
farm  and  clamor  of  his  wife,  was  to  take  gun  in  hand 
and  stroll  away  into  the  woods.  Here  he  would  some- 
times seat  himself  at  the  foot  of  a  tree,  and  share  the 
contents  of  his  wallet  with  Wolf,  with  whom  he  sym- 
pathized as  a  fellow  sufferer  in  persecution.  "Poor 
Wolf,"  he  would  say,  "thy  mistress  leads  thee  a  dog's 
life  of  it;  but  never  mind,  my  lad,  whilst  I  live  thou 
shalt  never  want  a  friend  to  stand  by  thee!"  Wolf 
would  wag  his  tail,  look  wistfully  in  his  master's  face, 
and  if  dogs  can  feel  pity  I  verily  believe  he  reciprocated 
the  sentiment  with  all  his  heart. 

In  a  long  ramble  of  the  kind  on  a  fine  autumnal  day, 
Rip  had  unconsciously  scrambled  to  one  of  the  high- 
est parts  of  the  Kaatskill  Mountains.  He  was  after  his 
favorite  sport  of  squirrel  shooting,  and  the  still  solitudes 
had  echoed  and  reechoed  with  the  reports  of  his  gun. 
Panting  and  fatigued,  he  threw  himself,  late  in  the  af- 
ternoon, on  a  green  knoll,  covered  with  mountain  herb- 

192 


RIP  VAN  WINKLE 

age,  that  crowned  the  brow  of  a  precipice.  From  an 
opening  between  the  trees  he  could  overlook  all  the 
lower  country  for  many  a  mile  of  rich  woodland.  He 
saw  at  a  distance  the  lordly  Hudson,  far,  far  below  him, 
moving  on  its  silent  but  majestic  course,  with  the  re- 
flection of  a  purple  cloud,  or  the  sail  of  a  lagging  bark, 
here  and  there  sleeping  on  its  glassy  bosom,  and  at  last 
losing  itself  in  the  blue  highlands. 

On  the  other  side  he  looked  down  into  a  deep  moun- 
tain glen,  wild,  lonely,  and  shagged,  the  bottom  filled  with 
fragments  from  the  impending  cliffs,  and  scarcely  lighted 
by  the  reflected  rays  of  the  setting  sun.  For  some  time 
Rip  lay  musing  on  this  scene;  evening  was  gradually 
advancing;  the  mountains  began  to  throw  their  long 
blue  shadows  over  the  valleys;  he  saw  that  it  would  be 
dark  long  before  he  could  reach  the  village,  and  he 
heaved  a  heavy  sigh  when  he  thought  of  encountering 
the  terrors  of  Dame  Van  Winkle. 

As  he  was  about  to  descend,  he  heard  a  voice  from 
a  distance,  hallooing,  "Rip  Van  Winkle  !  Rip  Van 
Winkle!"  He  looked  round,  but  could  see  nothing  but 
a  crow  winging  its  solitary  flight  across  the  mountain. 
He  thought  his  fancy  must  have  deceived  him,  and 
turned  again  to  descend,  when  he  heard  the  same  cry 
ring  through  the  still  evening  air:  "Rip  Van  Winkle! 
Rip  Van  Winkle ! "  —  at  the  same  time  Wolf  bristled 
up  his  back,  and  giving  a  low  growl,  skulked  to  his 
master's  side,  looking  fearfully  down  into  the  glen.  Rip 
now  felt  a  vague  apprehension  stealing  over  him;  he 
looked  anxiously  in  the  same  direction,  and  perceived 
a  strange  figure  slowly  toiling  up  the  rocks,  and  bend- 

193 


MODERN  STORIES 

ing  under  the  weight  of  something  he  carried  on  his 
back.  He  was  surprised  to  see  any  human  being  in  this 
lonely  and  unfrequented  place;  but  supposing  it  to  be 
some  one  of  the  neighborhood  in  need  of  his  assistance, 
he  hastened  down  to  yield  it. 

On  nearer  approach  he  was  still  more  surprised  at 
the  singularity  of  the  stranger's  appearance.  He  was 
a  short,  square-built  old  fellow,  with  thick  bushy  hair 
and  a  grizzled  beard.  His  dress  was  of  the  antique 
Dutch  fashion :  a  cloth  jerkin  strapped  round  the  waist, 
several  pair  of  breeches,  the  outer  one  of  ample  volume, 
decorated  with  rows  of  buttons  down  the  sides,  and 
bunches  at  the  knees.  He  bore  on  his  shoulder  a  stout 
keg,  that  seemed  full  of  liquor,  and  made  signs  for  Rip 
to  approach  and  assist  him  with  the  load.  Though 
rather  shy  and  distrustful  of  this  new  acquaintance,  Rip 
complied  with  his  usual  alacrity;  and  mutually  reliev- 
ing one  another,  they  clambered  up  a  narrow  gully, 
apparently  the  dry  bed  of  a  mountain  torrent.  As  they 
ascended,  Rip  every  now  and  then  heard  long  rolling 
peals  like  distant  thunder,  that  seemed  to  issue  out 
of  a  deep  ravine,  or  rather  cleft,  between  lofty  rocks, 
toward  which  their  rugged  path  conducted.  He  paused 
for  a  moment,  but  supposing  it  to  be  the  muttering 
of  one  of  those  transient  thunder-showers  which  often 
take  place  in  mountain  heights,  he  proceeded.  Pass- 
ing through  the  ravine,  they  came  to  a  hollow,  like  a 
small  amphitheatre,  surrounded  by  perpendicular  pre- 
cipices, over  the  brinks  of  which  impending  trees  shot 
their  branches,  so  that  you  only  caught  glimpses  of 
the  azure  sky  and  the  bright  evening  cloud.    During 

194 


RIP  VAN  WINKLE 

the  whole  time  Rip  and  his  companion  had  labored  on 
in  silence ;  for  though  the  former  marveled  greatly  what 
could  be  the  object  of  carrying  a  keg  of  liquor  up  this 
wild  mountain,  yet  there  was  something  strange  and 
incomprehensible  about  the  unknown,  that  inspired 
awe  and  checked  familiarity. 

On  entering  the  amphitheatre,  new  objects  of  won- 
der presented  themselves.  On  a  level  spot  in  the  centre 
was  a  company  of  odd-looking  personages  playing  at 
ninepins.  They  were  dressed  in  a  quaint  outlandish 
fashion;  some  wore  short  doublets,  others  jerkins,  with 
long  knives  in  their  belts,  and  most  of  them  had  enor- 
mous breeches  of  similar  style  with  that  of  the  guide's. 
Their  visages,  too,  were  peculiar;  one  had  a  large  beard, 
broad  face,  and  small  piggish  eyes;  the  face  of  another 
seemed  to  consist  entirely  of  nose,  and  was  surmounted 
by  a  white  sugar-loaf  hat,  set  off  with  a  little  red  cock's 
tail.  They  all  had  beards,  of  various  shapes  and  colors. 
There  was  one  who  seemed  to  be  the  commander.  He 
was  a  stout  old  gentleman,  with  a  weather-beaten  counte- 
nance; he  wore  a  laced  doublet,  broad  belt  and  hanger, 
high-crowned  hat  and  feather,  red  stockings,  and  high- 
heeled  shoes,  with  roses  in  them.  The  whole  group 
reminded  Rip  of  the  figures  in  an  old  Flemish  paint- 
ing in  the  parlor  of  Dominie  Van  Shaick,  the  village 
parson,  which  had  been  brought  over  from  Holland  at 
the  time  of  the  settlement. 

What  seemed  particularly  odd  to  Rip  was,  that  though 
these  folks  were  evidently  amusing  themselves,  yet  they 
maintained  the  gravest  faces,  the  most  mysterious 
silence,  and  were,  withal,  the  most  melancholy  party  of 

195 


MODERN  STORIES 

pleasure  he  had  ever  witnessed.  Nothing  interrupted 
the  stillness  of  the  scene  but  the  noise  of  the  balls,  which, 
whenever  they  were  rolled,  echoed  along  the  mountains 
like  rumbling  peals  of  thunder. 

As  Rip  and  his  companion  approached  them,  they 
suddenly  desisted  from  their  play,  and  stared  at  him 
with  such  fixed,  statue-like  gaze,  and  such  strange,  un- 
couth, lack-lustre  countenances,  that  his  heart  turned 
within  him,  and  his  knees  smote  together.  His  com- 
panion now  emptied  the  contents  of  the  keg  into  large 
flagons,  and  made  signs  to  him  to  wait  upon  the  com- 
pany. He  obeyed  with  fear  and  trembling;  they  quaffed 
the  liquor  in  profound  silence,  and  then  returned  to 
their  game. 

By  degrees  Rip's  awe  and  apprehension  subsided. 
He  even  ventured,  when  no  eye  was  fixed  upon  him,  to 
taste  the  beverage,  which  he  found  had  much  of  the 
flavor  of  excellent  Hollands.  He  was  naturally  a  thirsty 
soul,  and  was  soon  tempted  to  repeat  the  draught.  One 
taste  provoked  another;  and  he  reiterated  his  visits  to 
the  flagon  so  often  that  at  length  his  senses  were  over- 
powered, his  eyes  swam  in  his  head,  his  head  gradually 
declined,  and  he  fell  into  a  deep  sleep. 

On  waking,  he  found  himself  on  the  green  knoll 
whence  he  had  first  seen  the  old  man  of  the  glen.  He 
rubbed  his  eyes  —  it  was  a  bright,  sunny  morning.  The 
birds  were  hopping  and  twittering  among  the  bushes, 
and  the  eagle  was  wheeling  aloft,  and  breasting  the 
pure  mountain  breeze.  "Surely,"  thought  Rip,  "I  have 
not  slept  here  all  night."  He  recalled  the  occurrences 
before  he  fell  asleep.    The  strange  man  with  a  keg  of 

196 


RIP  VAN  WINKLE 

liquor  —  the  mountain  ravine  —  the  wild  retreat  among 
the  rocks  —  the  woe-begone  party  at  ninepins  —  the 
flagon  — "Oh !  that  flagon !  that  wicked  flagon ! "  thought 
Rip  —  "what  excuse  shall  I  make  to  Dame  Van 
Winkle  ?" 

He  looked  round  for  his  gun,  but  in  place  of  the  clean, 
well-oiled  fowling-piece,  he  found  an  old  firelock  lying 
by  him,  the  barrel  incrusted  with  rust,  the  lock  falling 
off,  and  the  stock  worm-eaten.  He  now  suspected  that 
the  grave  roisters  of  the  mountain  had  put  a  trick  upon 
him,  and,  having  dosed  him  with  liquor,  had  robbed 
him  of  his  gun.  Wolf,  too,  had  disappeared,  but  he 
might  have  strayed  away  after  a  squirrel  or  partridge. 
He  whistled  after  him,  and  shouted  his  name,  but  all 
in  vain;  the  echoes  repeated  his  whistle  and  shout,  but 
no  dog  was  to  be  seen. 

He  determined  to  revisit  the  scene  of  the  last  evening's 
gambol,  and  if  he  met  any  of  the  party,  to  demand  his 
dog  and  gun.  As  he  rose  to  walk,  he  found  himself  stiff 
in  the  joints,  and  wanting  in  his  usual  activity.  "These 
mountain  beds  do  not  agree  with  me,"  thought  Rip, 
"and  if  this  frolic  should  lay  me  up  with  a  fit  of  the 
rheumatism,  I  shall  have  a  blessed  time  with  Dame 
Van  Winkle."  With  some  difficulty  he  got  down  into 
the  glen;  he  found  the  gully  up  which  he  and  his  com- 
panion had  ascended  the  preceding  evening ;  but  to 
his  astonishment  a  mountain  stream  was  now  foaming 
down  it,  leaping  from  rock  to  rock,  and  filling  the  glen 
with  babbling  murmurs.  He,  however,  made  shift  to 
scramble  up  its  sides,  working  his  toilsome  way  through 
thickets  of  birch,  sassafras,  and  witch-hazel,  and  some- 

197 


MODERN  STORIES 

times  tripped  up  or  entangled  by  the  wild  grapevines 
that  twisted  their  coils  or  tendrils  from  tree  to  tree,  and 
spread  a  kind  of  network  in  his  path. 

At  length  he  reached  to  where  the  ravine  had  opened 
through  the  cliffs  to  the  amphitheatre;  but  no  traces  of 
such  opening  remained.  The  rocks  presented  a  high, 
impenetrable  wall,  over  which  the  torrent  came  tum- 
bling in  a  sheet  of  feathery  foam,  and  fell  into  a  broad, 
deep  basin,  black  from  the  shadows  of  the  surrounding 
forest.  Here,  then,  poor  Rip  was  brought  to  a  stand. 
He  again  called  and  whistled  after  his  dog;  he  was  only 
answered  by  the  cawing  of  a  flock  of  idle  crows,  sport- 
ing high  in  air  about  a  dry  tree  that  overhung  a  sunny 
precipice;  and  who,  secure  in  their  elevation,  seemed 
to  look  down  and  scoff  at  the  poor  man's  perplexities. 
What  was  to  be  done  ?  the  morning  was  passing  away, 
and  Rip  felt  famished  for  want  of  his  breakfast.  He 
grieved  to  give  up  his  dog  and  gun ;  he  dreaded  to  meet 
his  wife ;  but  it  would  not  do  to  starve  among  the  moun- 
tains. He  shook  his  head,  shouldered  the  rusty  firelock, 
and,  with  a  heart  full  of  trouble  and  anxiety,  turned 
his  steps  homeward. 

As  he  approached  the  village  he  met  a  number  of 
people,  but  none  whom  he  knew,  which  somewhat  sur- 
prised him,  for  he  had  thought  himself  acquainted  with 
every  one  in  the  country  round.  Their  dress,  too,  was 
of  a  different  fashion  from  that  to  which  he  was  accus- 
tomed. They  all  stared  at  him  with  equal  marks  of 
surprise,  and  whenever  they  cast  their  eyes  upon  him, 
invariably  stroked  their  chins.  The  constant  recurrence 
of  this  gesture  induced  Rip,  involuntarily,  to  do  the 

198 


RIP  VAN  WINKLE 

same,  when,  to  his  astonishment,  he  found  his  beard 
had  grown  a  foot  long! 

He  had  now  entered  the  skirts  of  the  village.  A  troop 
of  strange  children  ran  at  his  heels,  hooting  after  him, 
and  pointing  at  his  gray  beard.  The  dogs,  too,  not  one 
of  which  he  recognized  for  an  old  acquaintance,  barked 
at  him  as  he  passed.  The  very  village  was  altered;  it 
was  larger  and  more  populous.  There  were  rows  of 
houses  which  he  had  never  seen  before,  and  those  which 
had  been  his  familiar  haunts  had  disappeared.  Strange 
names  were  over  the  doors  —  strange  faces  at  the  win- 
dows, —  everything  was  strange.  His  mind  now  mis- 
gave him;  he  began  to  doubt  whether  both  he  and  the 
world  around  him  were  not  bewitched.  Surely  this  was 
his  native  village,  which  he  had  left  but  the  day  before. 
There  stood  the  Kaatskill  Mountains  —  there  ran  the 
silver  Hudson  at  a  distance  —  there  was  every  hill  and 
dale  precisely  as  it  had  always  been.  Rip  was  sorely 
perplexed.  "That  flagon  last  night,"  thought  he,  "has 
addled  my  poor  head  sadly!" 

It  was  with  some  difficulty  that  he  found  the  way  to 
his  own  house,  which  he  approached  with  silent  awe, 
expecting  every  moment  to  hear  the  shrill  voice  of  Dame 
Van  Winkle.  He  found  the  house  gone  to  decay  —  the 
roof  fallen  in,  the  windows  shattered,  and  the  doors  off 
the  hinges.  A  half-starved  dog  that  looked  like  Wolf 
was  skulking  about  it.  Rip  called  him  by  name,  but 
the  cur  snarled,  showed  his  teeth,  and  passed  on.  This 
was  an  unkind  cut  indeed  —  "My  very  dog,"  sighed 
poor  Rip,  "has  forgotten  me!" 

He  entered  the  house,  which,  to  tell  the  truth,  Dame 

199 


MODERN  STORIES 

Van  Winkle  had  always  kept  in  neat  order.  It  was 
empty,  forlorn,  and  apparently  abandoned.  This  deso- 
lateness  overcame  all  his  connubial  fears;  he  called 
loudly  for  his  wife  and  children ;  the  lonely  chambers 
rang  for  a  moment  with  his  voice,  and  then  again  all 
was  silence. 

He  now  hurried  forth,  and  hastened  to  his  old  resort, 
the  village  inn  —  but  it,  too,  was  gone.  A  large,  rickety 
wooden  building  stood  in  its  place,  with  great  gaping 
windows,  some  of  them  broken  and  mended  with  old 
hats  and  petticoats,  and  over  the  door  was  painted, 
"The  Union  Hotel,  by  Jonathan  Doolittle.,'  Instead  of 
the  great  tree  that  used  to  shelter  the  quiet  little  Dutch 
inn  of  yore,  there  now  was  reared  a  tall  naked  pole,  with 
something  on  the  top  that  looked  like  a  red  nightcap, 
and  from  it  was  fluttering  a  flag,  on  which  was  a  singu- 
lar assemblage  of  stars  and  stripes  —  all  this  was  strange 
and  incomprehensible.  He  recognized  on  the  sign,  how- 
ever, the  ruby  face  of  King  George,  under  which  he 
had  smoked  so  many  a  peaceful  pipe;  but  even  this  was 
singularly  metamorphosed.  The  red  coat  was  changed 
for  one  of  blue  and  buff,  a  sword  was  held  in  the  hand 
instead  of  a  sceptre,  the  head  was  decorated  with  a 
cocked  hat,  and  underneath  was  painted  in  large  char- 
acters, General  Washington. 

There  was,  as  usual,  a  crowd  of  folk  about  the  door, 
but  none  that  Rip  recollected.  The  very  character  of 
the  people  seemed  changed.  There  was  a  busy,  bus- 
tling, disputatious  tone  about  it,  instead  of  the  accus- 
tomed phlegm  and  drowsy  tranquillity.  He  looked  in 
vain  for  the  sage  Nicholas  Vedder,  with  his  broad  face, 

200 


RIP  VAN  WINKLE 

double  chin,  and  fair  long  pipe,  uttering  clouds  of  to- 
bacco-smoke instead  of  idle  speeches;  or  Van  Bummel, 
the  schoolmaster,  doling  forth  the  contents  of  an  an- 
cient newspaper.  In  place  of  these,  a  lean,  bilious-look- 
ing fellow,  with  his  pockets  full  of  handbills,  was  ha- 
ranguing vehemently  about  rights  of  citizens  —  elections 
—  members  of  Congress  —  liberty  —  Bunker's  Hill  — 
heroes  of  seventy-six  —  and  other  words,  which  were 
a  perfect  Babylonish  jargon  to  the  bewildered  Van 
Winkle. 

The  appearance  of  Rip,  with  his  long  grizzled  beard, 
his  rusty  fowling-piece,  his  uncouth  dress,  and  an  army 
of  women  and  children  at  his  heels,  soon  attracted  the 
attention  of  the  tavern  politicians.  They  crowded  round 
him,  eyeing  him  from  head  to  foot  with  great  curiosity. 
The  orator  bustled  up  to  him,  and,  drawing  him  partly 
aside,  inquired  "on  which  side  he  voted."  Rip  stared 
in  vacant  stupidity.  Another  short  but  busy  little  fel- 
low pulled  him  by  the  arm,  and,  rising  on  tiptoe,  in- 
quired in  his  ear,  "whether  he  was  Federal  or  Demo- 
crat." Rip  was  equally  at  a  loss  to  comprehend  the 
question;  when  a  knowing,  self-important  old  gentle- 
man, in  a  sharp  cocked  hat,  made  his  way  through  the 
crowd,  putting  them  to  the  right  and  left  with  his  elbows 
as  he  passed,  and  planting  himself  before  Van  Winkle, 
with  one  arm  akimbo,  the  other  resting  on  his  cane,  his 
keen  eyes  and  sharp  hat  penetrating,  as  it  were,  into  his 
very  soul,  demanded  in  an  austere  tone,  "what  brought 
him  to  the  election  with  a  gun  on  his  shoulder,  and  a 
mob  at  his  heels,  and  whether  he  meant  to  breed  a  riot 
in  the  village." — "Alas!  gentlemen,"  cried  Rip,  some- 

201 


MODERN  STORIES 

what  dismayed,  "I  am  a  poor  quiet  man,  a  native  of  the 
place,  and  a  loyal  subject  of  the  king,  God  bless  him ! " 

Here  a  general  shout  burst  from  the  bystanders  — 
"A  tory !  a  tory !  a  spy !  a  refugee !  hustle  him !  away  with 
him!"  It  was  with  great  difficulty  that  the  self-impor- 
tant man  in  the  cocked  hat  restored  order;  and,  having 
assumed  a  tenfold  austerity  of  brow,  demanded  again 
of  the  unknown  culprit  what  he  came  there  for,  and 
whom  he  was  seeking  ?  The  poor  man  humbly  assured 
him  that  he  meant  no  harm,  but  merely  came  there  in 
search  of  some  of  his  neighbors,  who  used  to  keep  about 
the  tavern. 

"Well  —  who  are  they  ?  —  name  them." 

Rip  bethought  himself  a  moment,  and  inquired, 
"Where 's  Nicholas  Vedder  ? " 

There  was  a  silence  for  a  little  while,  when  an  old 
man  replied,  in  a  thin,  piping  voice:  "Nicholas  Vedder! 
why,  he  is  dead  and  gone  these  eighteen  years!  There 
was  a  wooden  tombstone  in  the  churchyard  that  used 
to  tell  all  about  him,  but  that's  rotten  and  gone  too." 

"Where's  Brom  Dutcher?" 

"Oh,  he  went  off  to  the  army  in  the  beginning  of  the 
war:  some  say  he  was  killed  at  the  storming  of  Stony 
Point  ;  others  say  he  was  drowned  in  a  squall  at  the 
foot  of  Antony's  Nose.  I  don't  know  —  he  never  came 
back  again." 

"Where's  Van  Bummel,  the  schoolmaster?" 

"He  went  off  to  the  wars  too,  was  a  great  militia  gen- 
eral, and  is  now  in  Congress." 

Rip's  heart  died  away  at  hearing  of  these  sad  changes 
in  his  home  and  friends,  and  finding  himself  thus  alone 

202 


RIP  VAN  WINKLE 

in  the  world.  Every  answer  puzzled  him  too,  by  treat- 
ing of  such  enormous  lapses  of  time,  and  of  matters 
which  he  could  not  understand :  war  —  Congress  — 
Stony  Point;  he  had  no  courage  to  ask  after  any  more 
friends,  but  cried  out  in  despair,  "Does  nobody  here 
know  Rip  Van  Winkle?" 

"Oh,  Rip  Van  Winkle!"  exclaimed  two  or  three. 
"Oh,  to  be  sure!  that's  Rip  Van  Winkle  yonder,  lean- 
ing against  the  tree." 

Rip  looked,  and  beheld  a  precise  counterpart  of  him- 
self, as  he  went  up  the  mountain;  apparently  as  lazy, 
and  certainly  as  ragged.  The  poor  fellow  was  now  com- 
pletely confounded.  He  doubted  his  own  identity,  and 
whether  he  was  himself  or  another  man.  In  the  midst 
of  his  bewilderment,  the  man  in  the  cocked  hat  de- 
manded who  he  was,  and  what  was  his  name. 

"God  knows,"  exclaimed  he,  at  his  wit's  end;  "I'm 
not  myself  —  I  'm  somebody  else  —  that 's  me  yonder 
—  no  —  that 's  somebody  else  got  into  my  shoes  —  I 
was  myself  last  night,  but  I  fell  asleep  on  the  moun- 
tain, and  they  've  changed  my  gun,  and  everything 's 
changed,  and  I  'm  changed,  and  I  can't  tell  what 's  my 
name,  or  who  I  am!" 

The  bystanders  began  now  to  look  at  each  other,  nod, 
wink  significantly,  and  tap  their  fingers  against  their 
foreheads.  There  was  a  whisper,  also,  about  securing 
the  gun,  and  keeping  the  old  fellow  from  doing  mis- 
chief, at  the  very  suggestion  of  which  the  self-important 
man  in  the  cocked  hat  retired  with  some  precipitation. 
At  this  critical  moment  a  fresh,  comely  woman  pressed 
through  the  throng  to  get  a  peep  at  the  gray-bearded 

203 


MODERN  STORIES 

man.  She  had  a  chubby  child  in  her  arms,  which,  fright- 
ened at  his  looks,  began  to  cry.  "Hush,  Rip,"  cried 
she,  "hush,  you  little  fool;  the  old  man  won't  hurt  you." 
The  name  of  the  child,  the  air  of  the  mother,  the  tone 
of  her  voice,  all  awakened  a  train  of  recollections  in 
his  mind.  "What  is  your  name,  my  good  woman?" 
asked  he. 

"Judith  Gardenier." 

"And  your  father's  name?" 

"Ah,  poor  man,  Rip  Van  Winkle  was  his  name,  but 
it 's  twenty  years  since  he  went  away  from  home  with 
his  gun,  and  never  has  been  heard  of  since,  —  his  dog 
came  home  without  him;  but  whether  he  shot  himself, 
or  was  carried  away  by  the  Indians,  nobody  can  tell.  I 
was  then  but  a  little  girl." 

Rip  had  but  one  question  more  to  ask;  and  he  put  it 
with  a  faltering  voice:  — 

"Where's  your  mother?" 

"Oh,  she  too  had  died  but  a  short  time  since;  she 
broke  a  blood-vessel  in  a  fit  of  passion  at  a  New  Eng- 
land peddler." 

There  was  a  drop  of  comfort,  at  least,  in  this  intelli- 
gence. The  honest  man  could  contain  himself  no  longer. 
He  caught  his  daughter  and  her  child  in  his  arms.  "I 
am  your  father!"  cried  he  —  "Young  Rip  Van  Winkle 
once  —  old  Rip  Van  Winkle  now !  Does  nobody  know 
poor  Rip  Van  Winkle?" 

All  stood  amazed,  until  an  old  woman,  tottering  out 
from  among  the  crowd,  put  her  hand  to  her  brow,  and 
peering  under  it  in  his  face  for  a  moment,  exclaimed, 
"Sure  enough,  it  is  Rip  Van  Winkle  —  it  is  himself] 

204 


RIP  VAN  WINKLE 

Welcome  home  again,  old  neighbor  —  Why,  where 
have  you  been  these  twenty  long  years  ? " 

Rip's  story  was  soon  told,  for  the  whole  twenty  years 
had  been  to  him  but  as  one  night.  The  neighbors  stared 
when  they  heard  it;  some  were  seen  to  wink  at  each 
other,  and  put  their  tongues  in  their  cheeks;  and  the 
self-important  man  in  the  cocked  hat,  who,  when  the 
alarm  was  over,  had  returned  to  the  field,  screwed  down 
the  corners  of  his  mouth,  and  shook  his  head  —  upon 
which  there  was  a  general  shaking  of  the  head  through- 
out the  assemblage. 

It  was  determined,  however,  to  take  the  opinion  of 
old  Peter  Vanderdonk,  who  was  seen  slowly  advancing 
up  the  road.  He  was  a  descendant  of  the  historian 
of  that  name,  who  wrote  one  of  the  earliest  accounts  of 
the  province.  Peter  was  the  most  ancient  inhabitant 
of  the  village,  and  well  versed  in  all  the  wonderful 
events  and  traditions  of  the  neighborhood.  He  recol- 
lected Rip  at  once,  and  corroborated  his  story  in  the 
most  satisfactory  manner.  He  assured  the  company 
that  it  was  a  fact,  handed  down  from  his  ancestor  the 
historian,  that  the  Kaatskill  Mountains  had  always 
been  haunted  by  strange  beings.  That  it  was  affirmed 
that  the  great  Hendrick  Hudson,  the  first  discoverer  of 
the  river  and  country,  kept  a  kind  of  vigil  there  every 
twenty  years,  with  his  crew  of  the  Half  Moon;  being 
permitted  in  this  way  to  revisit  the  scenes  of  his  enter- 
prise, and  keep  a  guardian  eye  upon  the  river  and  the 
great  city  called  by  his  name.  That  his  father  had  once 
seen  them  in  their  old  Dutch  dresses  playing  at  nine- 
pins in  a  hollow  of  the  mountain;  and  that  he  himself 

205 


MODERN   STORIES 

had  heard,  one  summer  afternoon,  the  sound  of  their 
balls  like  distant  peals  of  thunder. 

To  make  a  long  story  short,  the  company  broke  up, 
and  returned  to  the  more  important  concerns  of  the 
election.  Rip's  daughter  took  him  home  to  live  with 
her;  she  had  a  snug  well-furnished  house,  and  a  stout 
cheery  farmer  for  a  husband,  whom  Rip  recollected  for 
one  of  the  urchins  that  used  to  climb  upon  his  back. 
As  to  Rip's  son  and  heir,  who  was  the  ditto  of  himself, 
seen  leaning  against  the  tree,  he  was  employed  to  work 
on  the  farm;  but  evinced  an  hereditary  disposition  to 
attend  to  anything  else  but  his  business. 

Rip  now  resumed  his  old  walks  and  habits;  he  soon 
found  many  of  his  former  cronies,  though  all  rather 
the  worse  for  the  wear  and  tear  of  time;  and  preferred 
making  friends  among  the  rising  generation,  with  whom 
he  soon  grew  into  great  favor. 

Having  nothing  to  do  at  home,  and  being  arrived  at 
that  happy  age  when  a  man  can  be  idle  with  impunity, 
he  took  his  place  once  more  on  the  bench  at  the  inn 
door,  and  was  reverenced  as  one  of  the  patriarchs  of 
the  village,  and  a  chronicle  of  the  old  times  "before  the 
war."  It  was  some  time  before  he  could  get  into  the 
regular  track  of  gossip,  or  could  be  made  to  compre- 
hend the  strange  events  that  had  taken  place  during 
his  torpor.  How  that  there  had  been  a  revolutionary 
war  —  that  the  country  had  thrown  off  the  yoke  of  old 
England  —  and  that,  instead  of  being  a  subject  of  his 
Majesty  George  the  Third,  he  was  now  a  free  citizen  of 
the  United  States.  Rip,  in  fact,  was  no  politician;  the 
changes  of  states  and  empires  made  but  little  impres- 

206 


RIP  VAN  WINKLE 

sion  on  him;  but  there  was  one  species  of  despotism 
under  which  he  had  long  groaned,  and  that  was  — 
petticoat  government.  Happily  that  was  at  an  end; 
he  had  got  his  neck  out  of  the  yoke  of  matrimony, 
and  could  go  in  and  out  whenever  he  pleased,  without 
dreading  the  tyranny  of  Dame  Van  Winkle.  Whenever 
her  name  was  mentioned,  however,  he  shook  his  head, 
shrugged  his  shoulders,  and  cast  up  his  eyes,  which 
might  pass  either  for  an  expression  of  resignation  to 
his  fate,  or  joy  at  his  deliverance. 

He  used  to  tell  his  story  to  every  stranger  that  arrived 
at  Mr.  Doolittle's  hotel.  He  was  observed,  at  first,  to 
vary  on  some  points  every  time  he  told  it,  which  was, 
doubtless,  owing  to  his  having  so  recently  awaked.  It 
at  last  settled  down  precisely  to  the  tale  I  have  related, 
and  not  a  man,  woman,  or  child  in  the  neighborhood 
but  knew  it  by  heart.  Some  always  pretended  to  doubt 
the  reality  of  it,  and  insisted  that  Rip  had  been  out 
of  his  head,  and  that  this  was  one  point  on  which  he 
always  remained  flighty.  The  old  Dutch  inhabitants, 
however,  almost  universally  gave  it  full  credit.  Even  to 
this  day  they  never  hear  a  thunderstorm  of  a  summer 
afternoon  about  the  Kaatskill  but  they  say  Hendrick 
Hudson  and  his  crew  are  at  their  game  of  ninepins; 
and  it  is  a  common  wish  of  all  henpecked  husbands  in 
the  neighborhood,  when  life  hangs  heavy  on  their  hands, 
that  they  might  have  a  quieting  draught  out  of  Rip  Van 
Winkle's  flagon. 


ALICE   AND   THE   TWO   QUEENS 

By  Charles  Lutwidge  Dodgson  ("Lewis 
Carroll ") 

ALICE  threw  herself  down  to  rest  on  a  lawn  as 
soft  as  moss,  with  little  flower-beds  dotted  about 
it  here  and  there.  "Oh,  how  glad  I  am  to  get  here! 
And  what  is  this  on  my  head  ?  "  she  exclaimed  in  a  tone 
of  dismay,  as  she  put  her  hands  up  to  something  very 
heavy,  that  fitted  tight  all  round  her  head. 

"But  how  can  it  have  got  there  without  my  knowing 
it  ?  -  she  said  to  herself,  as  she  lifted  it  off,  and  set  it  on 
her  lap  to  make  out  what  it  could  possibly  be. 

It  was  a  golden  crown. 

"Well,  this  is  grand  !  "  said  Alice.  "I  never  ex- 
pected I  should  be  a  Queen  so  soon  —  and  I  '11  tell 
you  what  it  is,  your  Majesty,"  she  went  on,  in  a  severe 
tone  (she  was  always  rather  fond  of  scolding  herself), 
"  it  '11  never  do  for  you  to  be  lolling  about  on  the 
grass  like  that!  Queens  have  to  be  dignified,  you 
know ! " 

So  she  got  up  and  walked  about  —  rather  stiffly  just 
at  first,  as  she  was  afraid  that  the  crown  might  come 
off;  but  she  comforted  herself  with  the  thought  that 
there  was  nobody  to  see  her.  "And  if  I  really  am  a 
Queen,"  she  said,  as  she  sat  down  again,  "I  shall  be 
able  to  manage  it  quite  well  in  time." 

208 


ALICE  AND  THE  TWO  QUEENS 

Everything  was  happening  so  oddly  that  she  did  n't 
feel  a  bit  surprised  at  finding  the  Red  Queen  and  the 
White  Queen  sitting  close  to  her,  one  on  each  side :  she 
would  have  liked  very  much  to  ask  them  how  they  came 
there,  but  she  feared  it  would  not  be  quite  civil.  How- 
ever, there  would  be  no  harm,  she  thought,  in  asking 
if  the  game  was  over.  "Please,  would  you  tell  me" — 
she  began,  looking  timidly  at  the  Red  Queen. 

"Speak  when  you're  spoken  to!"  the  Queen  sharply 
interrupted  her. 

"But  if  everybody  obeyed  that  rule,"  said  Alice,  who 
was  always  ready  for  a  little  argument,  "and  if  you 
only  spoke  when  you  were  spoken  to,  and  the  other 
person  always  waited  for  you  to  begin,  you  see  nobody 
would  ever  say  anything,  so  that  "  — 

"Ridiculous!"  cried  the  Queen.  "Why,  don't  you 
see,  child  "  —  here  she  broke  off  with  a  frown,  and, 
after  thinking  for  a  minute,  suddenly  changed  the  sub- 
ject of  the  conversation.  "What  do  you  mean  by  'If 
you  really  are  a  Queen '  ?  What  right  have  you  to  call 
yourself  so?  You  can't  be  a  Queen,  you  know,  till 
you've  passed  the  proper  examination.  And  the  sooner 
we  begin  it,  the  better." 

"I  only  said  'if '!"  poor  Alice  pleaded  in  a  piteous 
tone. 

The  two  queens  looked  at  each  other,  and  the  Red 
Queen  remarked,  with  a  little  shudder,  "She  says  she 
only  said  'if  "— 

"But  she  said  a  great  deal  more  than  that!"  the 
White  Queen  moaned,  wringing  her  hands.  "Oh,  ever 
so  much  more  than  that!" 

209 


MODERN  STORIES 

"So  you  did,  you  know,"  the  Red  Queen  said  to 
Alice.  "Always  speak  the  truth  —  think  before  you 
speak  —  and  write  it  down  afterwards." 

"I'm  sure  I  didn't  mean"  —  Alice  was  beginning, 
but  the  Red  Queen  interrupted  her  impatiently. 

"That 's  just  what  I  complain  of!  You  should  have 
meant!  What  do  you  suppose  is  the  use  of  a  child 
without  any  meaning  ?  Even  a  joke  should  have  some 
meaning  —  and  a  child  's  more  important  than  a  joke, 
I  hope.  You  could  n't  deny  that,  even  if  you  tried  with 
both  hands." 

"I  don't  deny  things  with  my  hands,"  Alice  objected. 

"Nobody  said  you  did,"  said  the  Red  Queen.  "I 
said  you  could  n't  if  you  tried." 

"She 's  in  that  state  of  mind,"  said  the  White  Queen, 
"that  she  wants  to  deny  something  —  only  she  doesn't 
know  what  to  deny!" 

"A  nasty,  vicious  temper,"  the  Red  Queen  remarked; 
and  then  there  was  an  uncomfortable  silence  for  a  min- 
ute or  two. 

The  Red  Queen  broke  the  silence  by  saying  to  the 
White  Queen,  "I  invite  you  to  Alice's  dinner-party 
this  afternoon." 

The  White  Queen  smiled  feebly,  and  said,  "And  I 
invite  you." 

"I  didn't  know  I  was  to  have  a  party  at  all,"  said 
Alice;  "but  if  there  is  to  be  one,  I  think  I  ought  to  in- 
vite the  guests." 

"We  gave  you  the  opportunity  of  doing  it,"  the  Red 
Queen  remarked;  "but  I  dare  say  you've  not  had 
many  lessons  in  manners  yet  ? " 

210 


ALICE  AND  THE  TWO  QUEENS 

"Manners  are  not  taught  in  lessons,"  said  Alice. 
"  Lessons  teach  you  to  do  sums,  and  things  of  that 
sort." 

"Can  you  do  Addition?"  the  White  Queen  asked. 
"What 's  one  and  one  and  one  and  one  and  one  and  one 
and  one  and  one  and  one  and  one  ?  " 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Alice.    "I  lost  count." 

"She  can't  do  Addition,"  the  Red  Queen  interrupted. 
"Can  you  do  Subtraction?     Take  nine  from  eight." 

"Nine  from  eight  I  can't,  you  know,"  Alice  replied 
very  readily;  "but"  — 

"She  can't  do  Subtraction,"  said  the  White  Queen. 
"Can  you  do  Division?  Divide  a  loaf  by  a  knife  — 
what 's  the  answer  to  that  ?" 

"I  suppose" — Alice  was  beginning,  but  the  Red 
Queen  answered  for  her.  "Bread-and-butter,  of  course. 
Try  another  Subtraction  sum.  Take  a  bone  from  a 
dog:  what   remains?" 

Alice  considered.  "The  bone  wouldn't  remain,  of 
course,  if  I  took  it  —  and  the  dog  wouldn't  remain:  it 
would  come  to  bite  me  —  and  I  'm  sure  I  should  n't 
remain ! " 

"Then  you  think  nothing  would  remain?"  said  the 
Red  Queen. 

"I  think  that 's  the  answer." 

"Wrong,  as  usual,"  said  the  Red  Queen*,  "the  dog's 
temper  would  remain." 

"But  I  don't  see  how"  — 

"  Why,  look  here ! "  the  Red  Queen  cried.  "  The  dog 
would  lose  its  temper,  wouldn't  it?" 

"Perhaps  it  would,"  Alice  replied  cautiously. 

211 


MODERN  STORIES 

"Then  if  the  dog  went  away,  its  temper  would  re- 
main!" the  Queen  exclaimed  triumphantly. 

Alice  said,  as  gravely  as  she  could,  "They  might  go 
different  ways."  But  she  couldn't  help  thinking  to 
herself,  "What  dreadful  nonsense  we  are  talking!" 

"She  can't  do  sums  a  bit!"  the  queens  said  together, 
with  great  emphasis. 

"Can  you  do  sums?"  Alice  said,  turning  suddenly 
on  the  White  Queen,  for  she  did  n't  like  being  found 
fault  with  so  much. 

The  Queen  gasped  and  shut  her  eyes.  "I  can  do 
Addition,"  she  said,  "if  you  give  me  time;  but  I  can't 
do  Subtraction  under  any  circumstances!" 

"Of  course  you  know  your  A  B  C?"  said  the  Red 
Queen. 

"  To  be  sure  I  do,"  said  Alice. 

"So  do  I,"  the  White  Queen  whispered:  "we'll 
often  say  it  over  together,  dear.  And  I  '11  tell  you  a 
secret  —  I  can  read  words  of  one  letter!  Isn't  that 
grand  ?  However,  don't  be  discouraged.  You  '11  come 
to  it  in  time." 

Here  the  Red  Queen  began  again.  "Can  you  answer 
useful  questions?"  she  said.    "How  is  bread  made?" 

"  I  know  that !  "  Alice  cried  eagerly.  ' '  You  take  some 
flour"  — 

"Where  do  you  pick  the  flower?"  the  White  Queen 
asked.     "In  a  garden  or  in  the  hedges?" 

"Well,  it  isn't  picked  at  all,"  Alice  explained:  "it's 
ground  "  — 

"  How  many  acres  of  ground  ?  "  said  the  White  Queen. 
"You  mustn't  leave  out  so  many  things." 

212 


ALICE  AND  THE  TWO  QUEENS 

"Fan  her  head!"  the  Red  Queen  anxiously  inter- 
rupted. "She'll  be  feverish  after  so  much  thinking." 
So  they  set  to  work  and  fanned  her  with  bunches  of 
leaves,  till  she  had  to  beg  them  to  leave  off,  it  blew  her 
hair  about  so. 

"She's  all  right  again  now,"  said  the  Red  Queen. 
"Do  you  know  Languages?  What's  the  French  for 
fiddle-de-dee?" 

"Fiddle-de-dee  's  not  English,"  Alice  replied  gravely. 

"Who  ever  said  it  was?"  said  the  Red  Queen. 

Alice  thought  she  saw  a  way  out  of  the  difficulty, 
this  time.  "If  you  '11  tell  me  what  language  'fiddle-de- 
dee  '  is,  I  '11  tell  you  the  French  for  it ! "  she  exclaimed 
triumphantly. 

But  the  Red  Queen  drew  herself  up  rather  stiffly, 
and  said,  "Queens  never  make  bargains." 

"I  wish  queens  never  asked  questions,"  Alice  thought 
to  herself. 

"Don't  let  us  quarrel,"  the  White  Queen  said,  in  an 
anxious  tone.    "What  is  the  cause  of  lightning?" 

"The  cause  of  lightning,"  Alice  said  very  decidedly, 
for  she  felt  quite  certain  about  this,  "is  the  thunder — ■ 
no,  no!"  she  hastily  corrected  herself.  "I  meant  the 
other  way." 

"It's  too  late  to  correct  it,"  said  the  Red  Queen: 
"when  you  've  once  said  a  thing,  that  fixes  it,  and  you 
must  take  the  consequences." 

"  Which  reminds  me  " — the  White  Queen  said,  look- 
ing down  and  nervously  clasping  and  unclasping  her 
hands,  "we  had  such  a  thunderstorm  last  Tuesday — » 
I  mean  one  of  the  last  set  of  Tuesdays,  you  know." 

213 


MODERN  STORIES 

Alice  was  puzzled.  "In  our  country,"  she  remarked, 
"there 's  only  one  day  at  a  time." 

The  Red  Queen  said,  "That's  a  poor  thin  way  of 
doing  things.  Now  here,  we  mostly  have  days  and  nights 
two  or  three  at  a  time,  and  sometimes  in  the  winter 
we  take  as  many  as  five  nights  together  —  for  warmth, 
you  know." 

"Are  Hve  nights  warmer  than  one  night,  then?" 
Alice  ventured  to  ask. 

"Five  times  as  warm,  of  course." 

"But  they  should  be  five  times  as  cold,  by  the  same 
rule"  — 

"Just  so!"  cried  the  Red  Queen.  "Five  times  as 
warm,  and  five  times  as  cold  —  just  as  I  'm  five  times 
as  rich  as  you  are,  and  five  times  as  clever!" 

Alice  sighed  and  gave  it  up.  "It's  exactly  like  a 
riddle  with  no  answer!"  she  thought. 

"Humpty  Dumpty  saw  it  too,"  the  White  Queen 
went  on  in  a  low  voice,  more  as  if  she  were  talking  to 
herself.  "He  came  to  the  door  with  a  corkscrew  in  his 
hand"  — 

"What  did  he  want?"  said  the  Red  Queen. 

"He  said  he  would  come  in,"  the  White  Queen  went 
on,  "because  he  was  looking  for  a  hippopotamus. 
Now,  as  it  happened,  there  was  n't  such  a  thing  in  the 
house,  that  morning." 

"Is  there  generally?"  Alice  asked,  in  an  astonished 
tone. 

"Well,  only  on  Thursdays,"  said  the  Queen. 

"I  know  what  he  came  for,"  said  Alice:  "he  wanted 
to  punish  the  fish,  because"  — 

214 


ALICE  AND  THE  TWO   QUEENS 

Here  the  White  Queen  began  again.  "It  was  such  a 
thunderstorm,  you  can't  think!"  ("She  never  could, 
you  know,"  said  the  Red  Queen.)  "And  part  of  the 
roof  came  off,  and  ever  so  much  thunder  got  in  —  and 
it  went  rolling  round  the  room  in  great  lumps  —  and 
knocking  over  the  tables  and  things  —  till  I  was  so 
frightened,  I  couldn't  remember  my  own  name!" 

Alice  thought  to  herself,  "I  never  should  try  to  re- 
member my  name  in  the  middle  of  an  accident !  Where 
would  be  the  use  of  it  ?  "  but  she  did  not  say  this  aloud, 
for  fear  of  hurting  the  poor  Queen's  feelings. 

"Your  Majesty  must  excuse  her,"  the  Red  Queen 
said  to  Alice,  taking  one  of  the  White  Queen's  hands 
in  her  own,  and  gently  stroking  it:  "she  means  well, 
but  she  can't  help  saying  foolish  things,  as  a  general 
rule." 

The  White  Queen  looked  timidly  at  Alice,  who  felt 
she  ought  to  say  something  kind,  but  really  couldn't 
think  of  anything  at  the  moment. 

"She  never  was  really  well  brought  up,"  the  Red 
Queen  went  on:  "but  it's  amazing  how  good-tempered 
she  is !  Pat  her  on  the  head,  and  see  how  pleased  she  '11 
be!"  But  this  was  more  than  Alice  had  courage  to 
do. 

"A  little  kindness  —  and  putting  her  hair  in  papers 
—  would  do  wonders  with  her"  — 

The  White  Queen  gave  a  deep  sigh,  and  laid  her  head 
on  Alice's  shoulder.    "I  am  so  sleepy! "  she  moaned. 

"She's  tired,  poor  thing!"  said  the  Red  Queen. 
"Smooth  her  hair  —  lend  her  your  nightcap  —  and 
sing  her  a  soothing  lullaby." 

215 


MODERN  STORIES 

"I  haven't  got  a  nightcap  with  me,"  said  Alice,  as 
she  tried  to  obey  the  first  direction ;  "and  I  don't  know 
any  soothing  lullabies." 

"I  must  do  it  myself,  then,"  said  the  Red  Queen, 
and  she  began :  — 

"Hush-a-by,  lady,  in  Alice's  lap! 
Till  the  feast 's  ready,  we  've  time  for  a  nap. 
When  the  feast 's  over,  we  '11  go  to  the  ball  — 
Red  Queen,  and  White  Queen,  and  Alice,  and  all ! 

"And  now  you  know  the  words,"  she  added,  as  she 
put  her  head  down  on  Alice's  other  shoulder,  "just 
sing  it  through  to  me.  I'm  getting  sleepy,  too."  In 
another  moment  both  queens  were  fast  asleep,  and 
snoring  loud. 


THE  QUEEN  OF  THE  PIRATE  ISLE 

By  Bret  Harte 

I  FIRST  knew  her  as  the  Queen  of  the  Pirate  Isle. 
To  the  best  of  my  recollection  she  had  no  reason- 
able right  to  that  title.  She  was  only  nine  years  old, 
inclined  to  plumpness  and  good  humor,  deprecated 
violence,  and  had  never  been  to  sea.  Need  it  be  added 
that  she  did  not  live  in  an  island  and  that  her  name 
was  Polly  ? 

Perhaps  I  ought  to  explain  that  she  had  already 
known  other  experiences  of  a  purely  imaginative  char- 
acter. Part  of  her  existence  had  been  passed  as  a  Beg- 
gar Child,  —  solely  indicated  by  a  shawl  tightly  folded 
round  her  shoulders,  and  chills;  as  a  Schoolmistress, 
unnecessarily  severe;  as  a  Preacher,  singularly  personal 
in  his  remarks ;  and  once,  after  reading  one  of  Cooper's 
novels,  as  an  Indian  Maiden.  This  was,  I  believe,  the 
only  instance  when  she  had  borrowed  from  another's 
fiction.  Most  of  the  characters  that  she  assumed  for 
days  and  sometimes  weeks  at  a  time  were  purely  origi- 
nal in  conception;  some  so  much  so  as  to  be  vague  to 
the  general  understanding.  I  remember  that  her  per- 
sonation of  a  certain  Mrs.  Smith,  whose  individuality 
was  supposed  to  be  sufficiently  represented  by  a  sun- 
bonnet  worn  wrong  side  before  and  a  weekly  addition  to 
her  family,  was  never  perfectly  appreciated  by  her  own 

217 


MODERN  STORIES 

circle,  although  she  lived  the  character  for  a  month. 
Another  creation  known  as  "The  Proud  Lady"  —  a 
being  whose  excessive  and  unreasonable  haughtiness 
was  so  pronounced  as  to  give  her  features  the  expres- 
sion of  extreme  nausea  —  caused  her  mother  so  much 
alarm  that  it  had  to  be  abandoned.  This  was  easily 
effected.  The  Proud  Lady  was  understood  to  have 
died.  Indeed,  most  of  Polly's  impersonations  were  got 
rid  of  in  this  way,  although  it  by  no  means  prevented 
their  subsequent  reappearance.  "I  thought  Mrs.  Smith 
was  dead,"  remonstrated  her  mother,  at  the  posthumous 
appearance  of  that  lady  with  a  new  infant.  "She  was 
buried  alive  and  kem  to!"  said  Polly,  with  a  melancholy 
air.  Fortunately,  the  representation  of  a  resuscitated 
person  required  such  extraordinary  acting,  and  was, 
through  some  uncertainty  of  conception,  so  closely  al- 
lied in  facial  expression  to  the  Proud  Lady,  that  Mrs. 
Smith  was  resuscitated  only  for  a  day. 

The  origin  of  the  title  of  the  Queen  of  the  Pirate  Isle 
may  be  briefly  stated  as  follows :  — 

An  hour  after  luncheon,  one  day,  Polly,  Hickory 
Hunt,  her  cousin,  and  Wan  Lee,  a  Chinese  page,  were 
crossing  the  nursery  floor  in  a  Chinese  junk.  The  sea 
was  calm  and  the  sky  cloudless.  Any  change  in  the 
weather  was  as  unexpected  as  it  is  in  books.  Suddenly 
a  West  Indian  hurricane,  purely  local  in  character  and 
unfelt  anywhere  else,  struck  Master  Hickory  and  threw 
him  overboard,  whence,  wildly  swimming  for  his  life 
and  carrying  Polly  on  his  back,  he  eventually  reached 
a  desert  island  in  the  closet.  Here  the  rescued  party  put 
up  a  tent  made  of  a  tablecloth  providentially  snatched 

218 


THE  QUEEN  OF  THE  PIRATE  ISLE 

from  the  raging  billows,  and,  from  two  o'clock  until 
four,  passed  six  weeks  on  the  island,  supported  only 
by  a  piece  of  candle,  a  box  of  matches,  and  two  pep- 
permint lozenges.  It  was  at  this  time  that  it  became 
necessary  to  account  for  Polly's  existence  among  them, 
and  this  was  only  effected  by  an  alarming  sacrifice  of 
their  morality:  Hickory  and  Wan  Lee  instantly  became 
Pirates,  and  at  once  elected  Polly  as  their  Queen.  The 
royal  duties,  which  seemed  to  be  purely  maternal,  con- 
sisted in  putting  the  Pirates  to  bed  after  a  day  of  rapine 
and  bloodshed,  and  in  feeding  them  with  licorice  water 
through  a  quill  in  a  small  bottle.  Limited  as  her  func- 
tions were,  Polly  performed  them  with  inimitable  grav- 
ity and  unquestioned  sincerity.  Even  when  her  com- 
panions sometimes  hesitated  from  actual  hunger  or 
fatigue  and  forgot  their  guilty  part,  she  never  faltered. 
It  was  her  real  existence;  her  other  life  of  being  washed, 
dressed,  and  put  to  bed  at  certain  hours  by  her  mother 
was  the  illusion. 

Doubt  and  skepticism  came  at  last,  —  and  came 
from  Wan  Lee !  Wan  Lee,  of  all  creatures !  Wan  Lee, 
whose  silent,  stolid,  mechanical  performance  of  a  pi- 
rate's duties  —  a  perfect  imitation  like  all  his  household 
work  —  had  been  their  one  delight  and  fascination ! 

It  was  just  after  the  exciting  capture  of  a  merchant- 
man, with  the  indiscriminate  slaughter  of  all  on  board, 
—  a  spectacle  on  which  the  round  blue  eyes  of  the  plump 
Polly  had  gazed  with  royal  and  maternal  tolerance,  — 
and  they  were  burying  the  booty,  two  tablespoons  and 
a  thimble,  in  the  corner  of  the  closet,  when  Wan  Lee 
stolidly  rose. 

219 


MODERN  STORIES 

"Melican  boy  pleenty  foolee!  Melican  boy  no  Pilat!" 
said  the  little  Chinaman,  substituting  "IV  for  "r's" 
after  his  usual  fashion. 

"Wotcher  say?"  said  Hickory,  reddening  with  sud- 
den confusion. 

"Melican  boy's  papa  heap  lickee  him  —  s'pose  him 
leal  Pilat,"  continued  Wan  Lee  doggedly.  "Melican 
boy  Pilat  inside  housee;  Chinee  boy  Pilat  outside  housee. 
First  chop  Pilat." 

Staggered  by  this  humiliating  statement,  Hickory  re- 
covered himself  in  character.  "Ah!  Ho!"  he  shrieked, 
dancing  wildly  on  one  leg,  "mutiny  and  splordina- 
shun!    'Way  with  him  to  the  yard-arm." 

"Yald-alm  —  heap  foolee!  Allee  same  clothes-horse 
for  washee  washee." 

It  was  here  necessary  for  the  Pirate  Queen  to  assert 
her  authority,  which,  as  I  have  before  stated,  was  some- 
what confusingly  maternal. 

"Go  to  bed  instantly  without  your  supper,"  she  said 
seriously.  "Really,  I  never  saw  such  bad  pirates.  Say 
your  prayers,  and  see  that  you're  up  early  to  church 
to-morrow." 

It  should  be  explained  that  in  deference  to  Polly's 
proficiency  as  a  preacher,  and  probably  as  a  relief  to 
their  uneasy  consciences,  Divine  Service  had  always 
been  held  on  the  Island.    But  Wan  Lee  continued:  — 

"Me  no  shabbee  Pilat  inside  housee;  me  shabbee 
Pilat  outside  housee.  S'pose  you  lun  away  longside 
Chinee  boy  —  Chinee  boy  makee  you  Pilat." 

Hickory  softly  scratched  his  leg,  while  a  broad,  bashful 
smile  almost  closed  his  small  eyes.    "Wot?"  he  asked. 

220 


THE  QUEEN  OF  THE  PIRATE  ISLE 

"Mebbee  you  too  frightened  to  lun  away.  Melican 
boy's  papa  heap  lickee." 

This  last  infamous  suggestion  fired  the  corsair's 
blood.  "D'yar  think  we  daresent?"  said  Hickory 
desperately,  but  with  an  uneasy  glance  at  Polly.  "I  '11 
show  yer  to-morrow." 

The  entrance  of  Polly's  mother  at  this  moment  put 
an  end  to  Polly's  authority  and  dispersed  the  pirate 
band,  but  left  Wan  Lee's  proposal  and  Hickory's  rash 
acceptance  ringing  in  the  ears  of  the  Pirate  Queen. 
That  evening  she  was  unusually  silent.  She  would  have 
taken  Bridget,  her  nurse,  into  her  confidence,  but  this 
would  have  involved  a  long  explanation  of  her  own 
feelings,  from  which,  like  all  imaginative  children, 
she  shrank.  She,  however,  made  preparation  for  the 
proposed  flight  by  settling  in  her  mind  which  of  her 
two  dolls  she  would  take.  A  wooden  creature  with 
easy-going  knees  and  movable  hair  seemed  to  be  more 
fit  for  hard  service  and  any  indiscriminate  scalping 
that  might  turn  up  hereafter.  At  supper,  she  timidly 
asked  a  question  of  Bridget.  "Did  ye  ever  hear  the 
loikes  uv  that,  ma'am,"  said  the  Irish  handmaid,  with 
affectionate  pride.  "Shure  the  darlint's  head  is  filled 
noight  and  day  with  ancient  history.  She  's  after  ask- 
ing me  now  if  queens  ever  run  away!"  To  Polly's  re- 
morseful confusion  here  her  good  father,  equally  proud 
of  her  precocious  interest  and  his  own  knowledge,  at 
once  interfered  with  an  unintelligible  account  of  the 
abdication  of  various  queens  in  history  until  Polly's 
head  ached  again.  Well  meant  as  it  was,  it  only  set- 
tled in  the  child's  mind  that  she  must  keep  the  awful 

221 


MODERN   STORIES 

secret  to  herself  and  that   no   one  could  understand 
her. 

The  eventful  day  dawned  without  any  unusual  sign  of 
importance.  It  was  one  of  the  cloudless  summer  days 
of  the  Californian  foothills,  bright,  dry,  and  as  the 
morning  advanced,  hot  in  the  white  sunshine.  The 
actual,  prosaic  house  in  which  the  Pirates  apparently 
lived  was  a  mile  from  a  mining  settlement,  on  a  beauti- 
ful ridge  of  pine  woods  sloping  gently  towards  a  valley 
on  the  one  side,  and  on  the  other  falling  abruptly  into 
a  dark,  deep,  olive  gulf  of  pine  trees,  rocks,  and  patches 
of  red  soil.  Beautiful  as  the  slope  was,  looking  over  to 
the  distant  snow  peaks  which  seemed  to  be  in  another 
world  than  theirs,  the  children  found  a  greater  attrac- 
tion in  the  fascinating  depths  of  a  mysterious  gulf,  or 
cafion,  as  it  was  called,  whose  very  name  filled  their 
ears  with  a  weird  music.  To  creep  to  the  edge  of  the 
cliff,  to  sit  upon  the  brown  branches  of  some  fallen  pine, 
and,  putting  aside  the  dried  tassels,  to  look  down  upon 
the  backs  of  wheeling  hawks  that  seemed  to  hang  in 
mid-air,  was  a  never-failing  delight.  Here  Polly  would 
try  to  trace  the  winding  red  ribbon  of  road  that  was 
continually  losing  itself  among  the  dense  pines  of  the 
opposite  mountains;  here  she  would  listen  to  the  far-off 
strokes  of  a  woodman's  axe,  or  the  rattle  of  some  heavy 
wagon,  miles  away,  crossing  the  pebbles  of  a  dried-up 
watercourse.  Here,  too,  the  prevailing  colors  of  the 
mountains,  red  and  white  and  green,  most  showed 
themselves.  There  were  no  frowning  rocks  to  depress 
the  children's  fancy,  but  everywhere  along  the  ridge  pure 
white  quartz  bared  itself  through  the  red  earth  like 


THE  QUEEN  OF  THE  PIRATE   ISLE 

smiling  teeth;  the  very  pebbles  they  played  with  were 
streaked  with  shining  mica  like  bits  of  looking-glass. 
The  distance  was  always  green  and  summer-like;  but 
the  color  they  most  loved,  and  which  was  most  famil- 
iar to  them,  was  the  dark  red  of  the  ground  beneath 
their  feet  everywhere.  It  showed  itself  in  the  roadside 
bushes;  its  red  dust  pervaded  the  leaves  of  the  over- 
hanging laurel;  it  colored  their  shoes  and  pinafores;  I 
am  afraid  it  was  often  seen  in  Indian-like  patches  on 
their  faces  and  hands.  That  it  may  have  often  given  a 
sanguinary  tone  to  their  fancies,  I  have  every  reason 
to  believe. 

It  was  on  this  ridge  that  the  three  children  gathered 
at  ten  o'clock  that  morning.  An  earlier  flight  had  been 
impossible  on  account  of  Wan  Lee  being  obliged  to 
perform  his  regular  duty  of  blacking  the  shoes  of  Polly 
and  Hickory  before  breakfast,  —  a  menial  act  which 
in  the  pure  republic  of  childhood  was  never  thought 
inconsistent  with  the  loftiest  piratical  ambition.  On 
the  ridge  they  met  one  "Patsey,"  the  son  of  a  neighbor, 
sun-burned,  broad-brimmed  hatted,  red-handed,  like 
themselves.  As  there  were  afterwards  some  doubts  ex- 
pressed whether  he  joined  the  Pirates  of  his  own  free 
will,  or  was  captured  by  them,  I  endeavor  to  give  the 
colloquy  exactly  as  it  occurred :  — 

Patsey:  "Hallo,  fellers." 

The  Pirates:  "Hello!" 

Patsey:  "Goin'  to  hunt  bars?  Dad  seed  a  lot  o' 
tracks  at  sun-up." 

The  Pirates  (hesitating):  "No-o"  — 

Patsey:  "I  am;  know  where  I  kin  get  a  six-shooter  ? " 

223 


MODERN  STORIES 

The  Pirates  (almost  ready  to  abandon  piracy  for 
bear-hunting,  but  preserving  their  dignity):  "Can't! 
We've  runn'd  away  for  real  pirates." 

Patsey:  "Not  for  good!" 

The  Queen  (interposing  with  sad  dignity  and  real 
tears  in  her  round  blue  eyes):  "Yes!"  (slowly  and 
shaking  her  head).  "Can't  go  back  again.  Never! 
Never!  Never!     The  —  the  —  eye  is  cast!" 

Patsey  (bursting  with  excitement) :  "No-o!  Sho'o! 
Wanter  know." 

The  Pirates  (a  little  frightened  themselves,  but  trem- 
ulous with  gratified  vanity):  "The  Perleese  is  on  our 
track!" 

Patsey:  "Lemme  go  with  yer!" 

Hickory:  "Wot '11  yer  giv?" 

Patsey:  "Pistol  and  er  bananer." 

Hickory  (with  judicious  prudence):  "Let 's  see  'em." 

Patsey  was  off  like  a  shot;  his  bare  little  red  feet 
trembling  under  him.  In  a  few  minutes  he  returned 
with  an  old-fashioned  revolver  known  as  one  of  "Allen's 
pepper-boxes"  and  a  large  banana.  He  was  at  once 
enrolled,  and  the  banana  eaten. 

As  yet  they  had  resolved  on  no  definite  nefarious 
plan.  Hickory,  looking  down  at  Patsey 's  bare  feet, 
instantly  took  off  his  own  shoes.  This  bold  act  sent  a 
thrill  through  his  companions.  Wan  Lee  took  off  his 
cloth  leggings,  Polly  removed  her  shoes  and  stockings, 
but,  with  royal  foresight,  tied  them  up  in  her  handker- 
chief. The  last  link  between  them  and  civilization  was 
broken. 

"Let's  go  to  the  Slumgullion." 

224 


THE  QUEEN  OF  THE  PIRATE  ISLE 

"Slumgullion"  was  the  name  given  by  the  miners 
to  a  certain  soft,  half-liquid  mud,  formed  of  the  water 
and  finely  powdered  earth  that  was  carried  off  by  the 
sluice-boxes  during  gold-washing,  and  eventually  col- 
lected in  a  broad  pool  or  lagoon  before  the  outlet.  There 
was  a  pool  of  this  kind  a  quarter  of  a  mile  away,  where 
there  were  "diggings"  worked  by  Patsey's  father,  and 
thither  they  proceeded  along  the  ridge  in  single  file. 
When  it  was  reached  they  solemnly  began  to  wade  in 
its  viscid  paint-like  shallows.  Possibly  its  unctuousness 
was  pleasant  to  the  touch;  possibly  there  was  a  fasci- 
nation in  the  fact  that  their  parents  had  forbidden  them 
to  go  near  it ;  but  probably  the  principal  object  of  this 
performance  was  to  produce  a  thick  coating  of  mud 
on  the  feet  and  ankles,  which,  when  dried  in  the  sun, 
was  supposed  to  harden  the  skin  and  render  their  shoes 
superfluous.  It  was  also  felt  to  be  the  first  real  step 
towards  independence;  they  looked  down  at  their  en- 
sanguined extremities  and  recognized  the  impossibility 
of  their  ever  again  crossing  (unwashed)  the  family 
threshold. 

Then  they  again  hesitated.  There  was  a  manifest 
need  of  some  well-defined  piratical  purpose.  The  last 
act  was  reckless  and  irretrievable,  but  it  was  vague. 
They  gazed  at  each  other.  There  was  a  stolid  look  of 
resigned  and  superior  tolerance  in  Wan  Lee's  eyes. 

Polly's  glance  wandered  down  the  side  of  the  slope 
to  the  distant  little  tunnels  or  openings  made  by  the 
miners,  who  were  at  work  in  the  bowels  of  the  moun- 
tain. "I  'd  like  to  go  into  one  of  them  funny  holes," 
she  said  to  herself,  half  aloud. 

225 


MODERN  STORIES 

Wan  Lee  suddenly  began  to  blink  his  eyes  with  un- 
wonted excitement.  "Catchee  tunnel  —  heap  gold," 
he  said  quickly.  "When  manee  come  outside  to  catchee 
dinner  —  Pilats  go  inside  catchee  tunnel !  Shabbee ! 
Pilats  catchee  gold  allee  samee  Melican  man!" 

"And  take  perseshiun,"  said  Hickory. 

"And  hoist  the  pirate  flag,"  said  Patsey. 

"And  build  a  fire,  and  cook,  and  have  a  family," 
said  Polly. 

The  idea  was  fascinating  to  the  point  of  being  irre- 
sistible. The  eyes  of  the  four  children  became  rounder 
and  rounder.  They  seized  each  other's  hands  and  swung 
them  backwards  and  forwards,  occasionally  lifting  their 
legs  in  a  solemn  rhythmic  movement  known  only  to 
childhood. 

"It 's  orful  far  off!"  said  Patsey,  with  a  sudden  look 
of  dark  importance.  "Pap  says  it 's  free  miles  on  the 
road.    Take  all  day  ter  get  there." 

The  bright  faces  were  overcast. 

"Less  go  er  slide!"  said  Hickory  boldly. 

They  approached  the  edge  of  the  cliff.  The  "slide" 
was  simply  a  sharp  incline  zigzagging  down  the  side 
of  the  mountain,  used  for  sliding  goods  and  provisions 
from  the  summit  to  the  tunnel-men  at  the  different 
openings  below.  The  continual  traffic  had  gradually 
worn  a  shallow  gulley  half  filled  with  earth  and  gravel 
into  the  face  of  the  mountain,  which  checked  the 
momentum  of  the  goods  in  their  downward  passage, 
but  afforded  no  foothold  for  a  pedestrian.  No  one  had 
ever  been  known  to  descend  a  slide.  That  feat  was  evi- 
dently reserved  for  the  pirate  band.     They  approached 

226 


THE  QUEEN  OF  THE  PIRATE  ISLE 

the  edge  of  the  slide,  hand  in  hand,  hesitated,  and  the 
next  moment  disappeared. 

Five  minutes  later  the  tunnel-men  of  the  Excelsior 
mine,  a  mile  below,  taking  their  luncheon  on  the  rude 
platform  of  debris  before  their  tunnel,  were  suddenly 
driven  to  shelter  in  the  tunnel  from  an  apparent  rain 
of  stones  and  rocks  and  pebbles  from  the  cliffs  above. 
Looking  up,  they  were  startled  at  seeing  four  round 
objects  revolving  and  bounding  in  the  dust  of  the  slide, 
which  eventually  resolved  themselves  into  three  boys 
and  a  girl.  For  a  moment  the  good  men  held  their 
breath  in  helpless  terror.  Twice  one  of  the  children  had 
struck  the  outer  edge  of  the  bank,  and  displaced  stones, 
that  shot  a  thousand  feet  down  into  the  dizzy  depths  of 
the  valley;  and  now  one  of  them,  the  girl,  had  actually 
rolled  out  of  the  slide  and  was  hanging  over  the  chasm 
supported  only  by  a  clump  of  chamisal  to  which  she 
clung ! 

"Hang  on  by  your  eyelids,  sis!  but  don't  stir,  for 
Heaven's  sake!"  shouted  one  of  the  men,  as  two  others 
started  on  a  hopeless  ascent  of  the  cliff  above  them. 

But  a  light  childish  laugh  from  the  clinging  little 
figure  seemed  to  mock  them!  Then  two  small  heads 
appeared  at  the  edge  of  the  slide ;  then  a  diminutive  fig- 
ure, whose  feet  were  apparently  held  by  some  invisible 
companion,  was  shoved  over  the  brink  and  stretched 
its  tiny  arms  towards  the  girl.  But  in  vain,  the  distance 
was  too  great.  Another  laugh  of  intense  youthful  en- 
joyment followed  the  failure,  and  a  new  insecurity  was 
added  to  the  situation  by  the  unsteady  hands  and  shoul- 
ders of  the  relieving  party,  who  were  apparently  shaking 

227 


MODERN  STORIES 

with  laughter.  Then  the  extended  figure  was  seen  to 
detach  what  looked  like  a  small  black  rope  from  its 
shoulders,  and  throw  it  to  the  girl.  There  was  another 
little  giggle.  The  faces  of  the  men  below  paled  in  terror. 
Then  Polly,  —  for  it  was  she,  —  hanging  to  the  long 
pigtail  of  Wan  Lee,  was  drawn  with  fits  of  laughter 
back  in  safety  to  the  slide.  Their  childish  treble  of  ap- 
preciation was  answered  by  a  ringing  cheer  from  below. 

"Darned  ef  I  ever  want  to  cut  off  a  Chinaman's  pig- 
tail again,  boys,"  said  one  of  the  tunnel-men,  as  he  went 
back  to  dinner. 

Meantime  the  children  had  reached  the  goal  and 
stood  before  the  opening  of  one  of  the  tunnels.  Then 
these  four  heroes  who  had  looked  with  cheerful  levity 
on  the  deadly  peril  of  the  descent  became  suddenly 
frightened  at  the  mysterious  darkness  of  the  cavern 
and  turned  pale  at  its  threshold. 

"Mebbee  a  wicked  Joss  backside  holee,  he  catchee 
Pilats,"  said  Wan  Lee  gravely. 

Hickory  began  to  whimper,  Patsey  drew  back,  Polly 
alone  stood  her  ground,  albeit  with  a  trembling  lip. 

"Let's  say  our  prayers  and  frighten  it  away,"  she 
said  stoutly. 

"No!  no!"  said  Wan  Lee,  with  sudden  alarm.  "No 
frighten  Spillits!  You  waitee!  Chinee  boy  he  talkee 
Spillit  not  to  frighten  you." 

Tucking  his  hands  under  his  blue  blouse,  Wan  Lee 
suddenly  produced  from  some  mysterious  recess  of 
his  clothing  a  quantity  of  red  paper  slips,  which  he 
scattered  at  the  entrance  of  the  cavern.  Then  drawing 
from  the  same  inexhaustible  receptacle  certain  squibs  or 

228 


THE  QUEEN  OF  THE  PIRATE  ISLE 

fireworks,  he  let  them  off  and  threw  them  into  the  open- 
ing. There  they  went  off  with  a  slight  fizz  and  splutter, 
a  momentary  glittering  of  small  points  in  the  darkness, 
and  a  strong  smell  of  gunpowder.  Polly  gazed  at  the 
spectacle  with  undisguised  awe  and  fascination.  Hick- 
ory and  Patsey  breathed  hard  with  satisfaction;  it  was 
beyond  their  wildest  dreams  of  mystery  and  romance. 
Even  Wan  Lee  appeared  transfigured  into  a  superior 
being  by  the  potency  of  his  own  spells.  But  an  unac- 
countable disturbance  of  some  kind  in  the  dim  interior 
of  the  tunnel  quickly  drew  the  blood  from  their  blanched 
cheeks  again.  It  was  a  sound  like  coughing,  followed 
by  something  like  an  oath. 

"He  's  made  the  Evil  Spirit  orful  sick,"  said  Hickory, 
in  a  loud  whisper. 

A  slight  laugh,  that  to  the  children  seemed  demonia- 
cal, followed. 

"See!"  said  Wan  Lee.  "Evil  Spillet  he  likee  Chinee; 
try  talkee  him." 

The  Pirates  looked  at  Wan  Lee,  not  without  a  cer- 
tain envy  of  this  manifest  favoritism.  A  fearful  desire 
to  continue  their  awful  experiments,  instead  of  pursu- 
ing their  piratical  avocations,  was  taking  possession  of 
them;  but  Polly,  with  one  of  the  swift  transitions  of 
childhood,  immediately  began  to  extemporize  a  house 
for  the  party  at  the  mouth  of  the  tunnel,  and,  with 
parental  foresight,  gathered  the  fragments  of  the  squibs 
to  build  a  fire  for  supper.  That  frugal  meal,  consisting 
of  half  a  ginger  biscuit  divided  into  five  small  portions, 
each  served  on  a  chip  of  wood,  and  having  a  deliciously 
mysterious  flavor  of  gunpowder  and  smoke,  was  soon 

229 


MODERN  STORIES 

over.  It  was  necessary  after  this  that  the  Pirates  should 
at  once  seek  repose  after  a  day  of  adventure,  which  they 
did  for  the  space  of  forty  seconds,  in  singularly  impos- 
sible attitudes  and  far  too  aggressive  snoring.  Indeed, 
Master  Hickory's  almost  upright  pose,  with  tightly 
folded  arms  and  darkly  frowning  brows,  was  felt  to  be 
dramatic,  but  impossible  for  a  longer  period.  The  brief 
interval  enabled  Polly  to  collect  herself  and  to  look 
around  her  in  her  usual  motherly  fashion.  Suddenly 
she  started  and  uttered  a  cry.  In  the  excitement  of  the 
descent  she  had  quite  overlooked  her  doll,  and  was 
now  regarding  it  with  round-eyed  horror. 

"Lady  Mary's  hair's  gone!"  she  cried,  convulsively 
grasping  the  Pirate  Hickory's  legs. 

Hickory  at  once  recognized  the  battered  doll  under 
the  aristocratic  title  which  Polly  had  long  ago  bestowed 
upon  it.    He  stared  at  the  bald  and  battered  head. 

"Ha!  ha!"  he  said  hoarsely;  "skelped  by  Injins!" 

For  an  instant  the  delicious  suggestion  soothed  the 
imaginative  Polly.  But  it  was  quickly  dispelled  by  Wan 
Lee. 

"Lady  Maley's  pigtail  hangee  top  side  hillee.  Catchee 
on  big  quartz  stone  allee  same  Polly;  me  go  fetchee." 

"No!"  quickly  shrieked  the  others.  The  prospect 
of  being  left  in  the  proximity  of  Wan  Lee's  evil  spirit, 
without  Wan  Lee's  exorcising  power,  was  anything  but 
reassuring.  "No,  don't  go!"  Even  Polly  (dropping  a 
maternal  tear  on  the  bald  head  of  Lady  Mary)  protested 
against  this  breaking  up  of  the  little  circle.  "  Go  to  bed ! " 
she  said  authoritatively,  "and  sleep  till  morning." 

Thus  admonished,  the  Pirates  again  retired.     This 

230 


THE  QUEEN  OF  THE  PIRATE  ISLE 

time  effectively;  for,  worn  by  actual  fatigue  or  soothed 
by  the  delicious  coolness  of  the  cave,  they  gradually, 
one  by  one,  succumbed  to  real  slumber.  Polly,  with- 
held from  joining  them  by  official  and  maternal  respon- 
sibility, sat  and  blinked  at  them  affectionately. 

Gradually  she,  too,  felt  herself  yielding  to  the  fasci- 
nation and  mystery  of  the  place  and  the  solitude  that 
encompassed  her.  Beyond  the  pleasant  shadows  where 
she  sat,  she  saw  the  great  world  of  mountain  and  val- 
ley through  a  dreamy  haze  that  seemed  to  rise  from 
the  depths  below  and  occasionally  hang  before  the  cav- 
ern like  a  veil.  Long  waves  of  spicy  heat  rolling  up  the 
mountain  from  the  valley  brought  her  the  smell  of  pine 
trees  and  bay,  and  made  the  landscape  swim  before  her 
eyes.  She  could  hear  the  far-off  cry  of  teamsters  on 
some  unseen  road;  she  could  see  the  far-off  cloud  of 
dust  following  the  mountain  stage-coach,  whose  rattling 
wheels  she  could  not  hear.  She  felt  very  lonely,  but 
was  not  quite  afraid ;  she  felt  very  melancholy,  but  was 
not  entirely  sad;  and  she  could  have  easily  awakened 
her  sleeping  companions  if  she  wished. 

No;  she  was  a  lone  widow  with  nine  children,  six  of 
whom  were  already  in  the  lone  churchyard  on  the  hill, 
and  the  others  lying  ill  with  measles  and  scarlet  fever 
beside  her.  She  had  just  walked  many  weary  miles  that 
day,  and  had  often  begged  from  door  to  door  for  a  slice 
of  bread  for  the  starving  little  ones.  It  was  of  no  use 
now  —  they  would  die !  They  would  never  see  their 
dear  mother  again.  This  was  a  favorite  imaginative 
situation  of  Polly's,  but  only  indulged  when  her  com- 
panions were  asleep,  partly  because  she  could  not  trust 

231 


MODERN  STORIES 

confederates  with  her  more  serious  fancies,  and  partly 
because  they  were  at  such  times  passive  in  her  hands. 
She  glanced  timidly  around.  Satisfied  that  no  one  could 
observe  her,  she  softly  visited  the  bedside  of  each  of  her 
companions,  and  administered  from  a  purely  fictitious 
bottle  spoonfuls  of  invisible  medicine.  Physical  cor- 
rection in  the  form  of  slight  taps,  which  they  always 
required,  and  in  which  Polly, was  strong,  was  only 
withheld  now  from  a  sense  of  their  weak  condition. 
But  in  vain ;  they  succumbed  to  the  fell  disease,  —  they 
always  died  at  this  juncture, —  and  Polly  was  left  alone. 
She  thought  of  the  little  church  where  she  had  once 
seen  a  funeral,  and  remembered  the  nice  smell  of  the 
flowers;  she  dwelt  with  melancholy  satisfaction  on  the 
nine  little  tombstones  in  the  graveyard,  each  with  an 
inscription,  and  looked  forward  with  gentle  anticipation 
to  the  long  summer  days,  when,  with  Lady  Mary  in  her 
lap,  she  would  sit  on  those  graves  clad  in  the  deepest 
mourning.  The  fact  that  the  unhappy  victims  at  times 
moved  as  it  were  uneasily  in  their  graves,  or  snored, 
did  not  affect  Polly's  imaginative  contemplation,  nor 
withhold  the  tears  that  gathered  in  her  round  eyes. 

Presently,  the  lids  of  the  round  eyes  began  to  droop, 
the  landscape  beyond  began  to  be  more  confused,  and 
sometimes  to  disappear  entirely  and  reappear  again 
with  startling  distinctness.  Then  a  sound  of  rippling 
water  from  the  little  stream  that  flowed  from  the  mouth 
of  the  tunnel  soothed  her  and  seemed  to  carry  her  away 
with  it,  and  then  everything  was  dark. 

The  next  thing  that  she  remembered  was  that  she 
was  apparently  being  carried  along  on  some  gliding 

232 


THE  QUEEN  OF  THE  PIRATE  ISLE 

object  to  the  sound  of  rippling  water.  She  was  not  alone, 
for  her  three  companions  were  lying  beside  her,  rather 
tightly  packed  and  squeezed  in  the  same  mysterious 
vehicle.  Even  in  the  profound  darkness  that  surrounded 
her,  Polly  could  feel  and  hear  that  they  were  accom- 
panied, and  once  or  twice  a  faint  streak  of  light  from 
the  side  of  the  tunnel  showed  her  gigantic  shadows 
walking  slowly  on  either  side  of  the  gliding  car.  She 
felt  the  little  hands  of  her  associates  seeking  hers,  and 
knew  they  were  awake  and  conscious,  and  she  returned 
to  each  a  reassuring  pressure  from  the  large  protecting 
instinct  of  her  maternal  little  heart.  Presently  the  car 
glided  into  an  open  space  of  bright  light,  and  stopped. 
The  transition  from  the  darkness  of  the  tunnel  at  first 
dazzled  their  eyes.    It  was  like  a  dream. 

They  were  in  a  circular  cavern  from  which  three 
other  tunnels,  like  the  one  they  had  passed  through, 
diverged.  The  walls,  lit  up  by  fifty  or  sixty  candles 
stuck  at  irregular  intervals  in  crevices  of  the  rock,  were 
of  glittering  quartz  and  mica.  But  more  remarkable 
than  all  were  the  inmates  of  the  cavern,  who  were  ranged 
round  the  walls,  —  men  who,  like  their  attendants, 
seemed  to  be  of  extra  stature;  who  had  blackened  faces, 
wore  red  bandana  handkerchiefs  round  their  heads  and 
their  waists,  and  carried  enormous  knives  and  pistols 
stuck  in  their  belts.  On  a  raised  platform  made  of  a 
packing-box  on  which  was  rudely  painted  a  skull  and 
cross-bones,  sat  the  chief  or  leader  of  the  band  covered 
with  a  buffalo  robe;  on  either  side  of  him  were  two  small 
barrels,  marked  "Grog"  and  "Gunpowder."  The 
children  stared  and  clung  closer  to  Polly.   Yet,  in  spite 

233 


MODERN   STORIES 

of  these  desperate  and  warlike  accessories,  the  strangers 
bore  a  singular  resemblance  to  "Christy  Minstrels"  in 
their  blackened  faces  and  attitudes  that  somehow  made 
them  seem  less  awful.  In  particular,  Polly  was  im- 
pressed with  the  fact  that  even  the  most  ferocious  had 
a  certain  kindliness  of  eye,  and  showed  their  teeth  almost 
idiotically. 

"Welcome!"  said  the  leader,  —  "welcome  to  the 
Pirates'  Cave!  The  Red  Rover  of  the  North  Fork  of 
the  Stanislaus  River  salutes  the  Queen  of  the  Pirate 
Isle!"  He  rose  up  and  made  an  extraordinary  bow. 
It  was  repeated  by  the  others  with  more  or  less  exag- 
geration, to  the  point  of  one  humorist  losing  his  bal- 
ance! 

"Oh,  thank  you  very  much,"  said  Polly  timidly,  but 
drawing  her  little  flock  closer  to  her  with  a  small  pro- 
tecting arm;  "but  could  you  —  would  you  —  please 
—  tell  us  —  what  time  it  is  ? " 

"We  are  approaching  the  middle  of  Next  Week," 
said  the  leader  gravely;  "but  what  of  that?  Time  is 
made  for  slaves!  The  Red  Rover  seeks  it  not!  Why 
should  the  Queen  ?" 

"I  think  we  must  be  going,"  hesitated  Polly,  yet  by 
no  means  displeased  with  the  recognition  of  her  rank. 

"Not  until  we  have  paid  homage  to  Your  Majesty," 
returned  the  leader.  "What  ho!  there!  Let  Brother 
Step-and-Fetch-It  pass  the  Queen  around  that  we  may 
do  her  honor."  Observing  that  Polly  shrank  slightly 
back,  he  added:  "Fear  nothing;  the  man  who  hurts  a 
hair  of  Her  Majesty's  head  dies  by  this  hand.  Ah!  ha!" 

The  others  all  said,  "  Ha!  ha!"  and  danced  alternately 

234 


THE  QUEEN  OF  THE  PIRATE  ISLE 

on  one  leg  and  then  on  the  other,  but  always  with  the 
same  dark  resemblance  to  Christy  Minstrels.  Brother 
Step-and-Fetch-It,  whose  very  long  beard  had  a  con- 
fusing suggestion  of  being  a  part  of  the  leader's  buffalo 
robe,  lifted  her  gently  in  his  arms  and  carried  her  to 
the  Red  Rovers  in  turn.  Each  one  bestowed  a  kiss  upon 
her  cheek  or  forehead,  and  would  have  taken  her  in  his 
arms,  or  on  his  knees,  or  otherwise  lingered  over  his 
salute,  but  they  were  sternly  restrained  by  their  leader. 
When  the  solemn  rite  was  concluded,  Step-and-Fetch- 
It  paid  his  own  courtesy  with  an  extra  squeeze  of  the 
curly  head,  and  deposited  her  again  in  the  truck,  a  little 
frightened,  a  little  astonished,  but  with  a  considerable 
accession  to  her  dignity.  Hickory  and  Patsey  looked 
on  with  stupefied  amazement.  Wan  Lee  alone  remained 
stolid  and  unimpressed,  regarding  the  scene  with  calm 
and  triangular  eyes. 

"Will  Your  Majesty  see  the  Red  Rovers  dance?" 

"No,  if  you  please,"  said  Polly,  with  gentle  serious- 
ness. 

"Will  Your  Majesty  fire  this  barrel  of  gunpowder, 
or  tap  this  breaker  of  grog  ? " 

"No,  I  thank  you." 

"Is  there  no  command  Your  Majesty  would  lay  upon 
us?" 

"No,  please,"  said  Polly,  in  a  failing  voice. 

"Is  there  anything  Your  Majesty  has  lost?  Think 
again !  Will  Your  Majesty  deign  to  cast  your  royal  eyes 
on  this?" 

He  drew  from  under  his  buffalo  robe  what  seemed 
like  a  long  tress  of  blond  hair,  and  held  it  aloft.    Polly 

235 


MODERN  STORIES 

instantly  recognized  the  missing  scalp  of  her  hapless 
doll. 

"If  you  please,  sir,  it 's  Lady  Mary's.    She  's  lost  it." 

"And  lost  it  —  Your  Majesty  —  only  to  find  some- 
thing more  precious.  Would  Your  Majesty  hear  the 
story  ?  " 

A  little  alarmed,  a  little  curious,  a  little  self-anxious, 
and  a  little  induced  by  the  nudges  and  pinches  of  her 
companions,  the  Queen  blushingly  signified  her  royal 
assent. 

"Enough.  Bring  refreshments.  Will  Your  Majesty 
prefer  wintergreen,  peppermint,  rose,  or  acidulated 
drops  ?  Red  or  white  ?  Or  perhaps  Your  Majesty  will 
let  me  recommend  these  bull's-eyes,"  said  the  leader, 
as  a  collection  of  sweets  in  a  hat  were  suddenly  pro- 
duced from  the  barrel  labeled  "Gunpowder"  and 
handed  to  the  children. 

"Listen,"  he  continued,  in  a  silence  broken  only  by 
the  gentle  sucking  of  bull's-eyes.  "Many  years  ago  the 
old  Red  Rovers  of  these  parts  locked  up  all  their  trea- 
sures in  a  secret  cavern  in  this  mountain.  They  used 
spells  and  magic  to  keep  it  from  being  entered  or  found 
by  anybody,  for  there  was  a  certain  mark  upon  it  made 
by  a  peculiar  rock  that  stuck  out  of  it,  which  signified 
what  there  was  below.  Long  afterwards,  other  Red 
Rovers  who  had  heard  of  it  came  here  and  spent  days 
and  days  trying  to  discover  it,  digging  holes  and  blast- 
ing tunnels  like  this,  but  of  no  use!  Sometimes  they 
thought  they  discovered  the  magic  marks  in  the  pecul- 
iar rock  that  stuck  out  of  it,  but  when  they  dug  there 
they  found  no  treasure.    And  why  ?   Because  there  was 

236 


THE  QUEEN  OF  THE  PIRATE  ISLE 

a  magic  spell  upon  it.  And  what  was  that  magic  spell  ? 
Why,  this !  It  could  only  be  discovered  by  a  person  who 
could  not  possibly  know  that  he  or  she  had  discovered 
it;  who  never  could  or  would  be  able  to  enjoy  it;  who 
could  never  see  it,  never  feel  it,  never,  in  fact,  know 
anything  at  all  about  it !  It  was  n't  a  dead  man,  it 
was  n't  an  animal,  it  was  n't  a  baby!" 

"Why,"  said  Polly,  jumping  up  and  clapping  her 
hands,  "it  was  a  Dolly." 

"Your  Majesty's  head  is  level!  Your  Majesty  has 
guessed  it!"  said  the  leader  gravely.  "It  was  Your 
Majesty's  own  dolly,  Lady  Mary,  who  broke  the  spell! 
When  Your  Majesty  came  down  the  slide,  the  doll  fell 
from  your  gracious  hand  when  your  foot  slipped.  Your 
Majesty  recovered  Lady  Mary,  but  did  not  observe 
that  her  hair  had  caught  in  a  peculiar  rock,  called  the 
'Outcrop,'  and  remained  behind!  When,  later  on,  while 
sitting  with  your  attendants  at  the  mouth  of  the  tun- 
nel, Your  Majesty  discovered  that  Lady  Mary's  hair 
was  gone,  I  overheard  Your  Majesty,  and  dispatched 
the  trusty  Step-and-Fetch-It  to  seek  it  at  the  mountain 
side.  He  did  so,  and  found  it  clinging  to  the  rock, 
and  beneath  it  —  the  entrance  to  the  Secret  Cave ! " 

Patsey  and  Hickory,  who,  failing  to  understand  a 
word  of  this  explanation,  had  given  themselves  up  to 
the  unconstrained  enjoyment  of  the  sweets,  began  now 
to  apprehend  that  some  change  was  impending,  and 
prepared  for  the  worst  by  hastily  swallowing  what  they 
had  in  their  mouths,  thus  defying  enchantment,  and 
getting  ready  for  speech.  Polly,  who  had  closely  fol- 
lowed the  story,  albeit  with  the  embellishments  of  her 

237 


MODERN  STORIES 

own  imagination,  made  her  eyes  rounder  than  ever.  A 
bland  smile  broke  on  Wan  Lee's  face,  as,  to  the  chil- 
dren's amazement,  he  quietly  disengaged  himself  from 
the  group  and  stepped  before  the  leader. 

"Melican  man  plenty  foolee  Melican  chillern.  No 
foolee  China  boy!  China  boy  knowee  you.  You  no  Led 
Lofer.  You  no  Pilat  —  you  allee  same  tunnel-man  — 
you  Bob  Johnson!  Me  shabbee  you!  You  dressee  up 
allee  same  as  Led  Lofer  —  but  you  Bob  Johnson  — 
allee  same.  My  fader  washee  washee  for  you.  You  no 
payee  him.  You  owee  him  folty  dolla!  Me  blingee  you 
billee.  You  no  payee  billee!  You  say,  'Chalkee  up, 
John.'  You  say,  'Bimeby,  John.'  But  me  no  catchee 
folty  dolla!" 

A  roar  of  laughter  followed,  in  which  even  the  leader 
apparently  forgot  himself  enough  to  join.  But  the  next 
moment  springing  to  his  feet  he  shouted,  "Ho!  ho!  A 
traitor!  Away  with  him  to  the  deepest  dungeon  beneath 
the  castle  moat!" 

Hickory  and  Patsey  began  to  whimper.  But  Polly, 
albeit  with  a  tremulous  lip,  stepped  to  the  side  of  her 
little  Pagan  friend.  "Don't  you  dare  touch  him,"  she 
said,  with  a  shake  of  unexpected  determination  in  her 
little  curly  head;  "if  you  do,  I  '11  tell  my  father,  and  he 
will  slay  you !    All  of  you  —  there ! " 

"Your  father!    Then  you  are  not  the  Queen!" 

It  was  a  sore  struggle  to  Polly  to  abdicate  her  royal 
position;  it  was  harder  to  do  it  with  befitting  dignity. 
To  evade  the  direct  question  she  was  obliged  to  aban- 
don her  defiant  attitude.  "If  you  please,  sir,"  she  said 
hurriedly,  with  an  increasing  color  and  no  stops,  "we're 

238 


THE  QUEEN  OF  THE  PIRATE  ISLE 

not  always  Pirates,  you  know,  and  Wan  Lee  is  only  our 
boy  what  brushes  my  shoes  in  the  morning,  and  runs 
of  errands,  and  he  does  n't  mean  anything  bad,  sir,  and 
we  'd  like  to  take  him  back  home  with  us." 

"Enough,"  said  the  leader,  changing  his  entire  man- 
ner with  the  most  sudden  and  shameless  inconsistency. 
"You  shall  go  back  together,  and  woe  betide  the  mis- 
creant who  would  prevent  it !  What  say  you,  brothers  ? 
What  shall  be  his  fate  who  dares  to  separate  our  noble 
Queen  from  her  faithful  Chinese  henchman  ? " 

"He  shall  die!"  roared  the  others,  with  beaming 
cheerfulness. 

"And  what  say  you  —  shall  we  see  them  home?" 

"We  will!"  roared  the  others. 

Before  the  children  could  fairly  comprehend  what 
had  passed,  they  were  again  lifted  into  the  truck  and 
began  to  glide  back  into  the  tunnel  they  had  just  quitted. 
But  not  again  in  darkness  and  silence;  the  entire  band 
of  Red  Rovers  accompanied  them,  illuminating  the  dark 
passage  with  the  candles  they  had  snatched  from  the 
walls.  In  a  few  moments  they  were  at  the  entrance  again. 
The  great  world  lay  beyond  them  once  more,  with  rocks 
and  valleys  suffused  by  the  rosy  light  of  the  setting  sun. 
The  past  seemed  like  a  dream. 

But  were  they  really  awake  now  ?  They  could  not 
tell.  They  accepted  everything  with  the  confidence  and 
credulity  of  all  children  who  have  no  experience  to 
compare  with  their  first  impressions  and  to  whom  the 
future  contains  nothing  impossible.  It  was  without 
surprise,  therefore,  that  they  felt  themselves  lifted  on  the 
shoulders  of  the  men  who  were  making  quite  a  proces- 

239 


MODERN  STORIES 

sion  along  the  steep  trail  towards  the  settlement  again. 
Polly  noticed  that  at  the  mouth  of  the  other  tunnels 
they  were  greeted  by  men  as  if  they  were  carrying  tidings 
of  great  joy;  that  they  stopped  to  rejoice  together,  and 
that  in  some  mysterious  manner  their  conductors  had 
got  their  faces  washed,  and  had  become  more  like  beings 
of  the  outer  world.  When  they  neared  the  settlement 
the  excitement  seemed  to  have  become  greater;  people 
rushed  out  to  shake  hands  with  the  men  who  were  carry- 
ing them,  and  overpowered  even  the  children  with  ques- 
tions they  could  not  understand.  Only  one  sentence 
Polly  could  clearly  remember  as  being  the  burden  of 
all  congratulations.  "Struck  the  old  lead  at  last!"  With 
a  faint  consciousness  that  she  knew  something  about 
it,  she  tried  to  assume  a  dignified  attitude  on  the  leader's 
shoulders,  even  while  she  was  beginning  to  be  heavy 
with  sleep. 

And  then  she  remembered  a  crowd  near  her  father's 
house,  out  of  which  her  father  came  smiling  pleasantly 
on  her,  but  not  interfering  with  her  triumphal  progress 
until  the  leader  finally  deposited  her  in  her  mother's 
lap  in  their  own  sitting-room.  And  then  she  remembered 
being  "cross,"  and  declining  to  answer  any  questions, 
and  shortly  afterwards  found  herself  comfortably  in 
bed.    Then  she  heard  her  mother  say  to  her  father:  — 

"It  really  seems  too  ridiculous  for  anything,  John; 
the  idea  of  those  grown  men  dressing  themselves  up  to 
play  with  children." 

"Ridiculous  or  not,"  said  her  father,  " these  grown 
men  of  the  Excelsior  mine  have  just  struck  the  famous 
old  lode  of  Red  Mountain,  which  is  as  good  as  a  for- 

240 


THE  QUEEN  OF  THE  PIRATE  ISLE 

tune  to  everybody  on  the  Ridge,  and  were  as  wild  as 
boys!  And  they  say  it  never  would  have  been  found  if 
Polly  had  n't  tumbled  over  the  slide  directly  on  top  of 
the  outcrop,  and  left  the  absurd  wig  of  that  wretched 
doll  of  hers  to  mark  its  site." 

"And  that,"  murmured  Polly  sleepily  to  her  doll,  as 
she  drew  it  closer  to  her  breast,  "is  all  that  they  know 
of  it." 


WEE   WILLIE   WINKIE 

"AN  OFFICER  AND  A  GENTLEMAN" 

By  Rudyard  Kipling 

HIS  full  name  was  Percival  William  Williams,  but 
he  picked  up  the  other  name  in  a  nursery-book, 
and  that  was  the  end  of  the  christened  titles.  His  mo- 
ther's ayah  called  him  Willie-Baba,  but  as  he  never  paid 
the  faintest  attention  to  anything  that  the  ayah  said, 
her  wisdom  did  not  help  matters. 

His  father  was  the  Colonel  of  the  195th,  and  as  soon 
as  Wee  Willie  Winkie  was  old  enough  to  understand 
what  military  discipline  meant,  Colonel  Williams  put 
him  under  it.  There  was  no  other  way  of  managing 
the  child.  When  he  was  good  for  a  week,  he  drew  good- 
conduct  pay;  and  when  he  was  bad,  he  was  deprived 
of  his  good-conduct  stripe.  Generally  he  was  bad,  for 
India  offers  many  chances  of  going  wrong  to  little  six- 
year-olds. 

Children  resent  familiarity  from  strangers,  and  Wee 
Willie  Winkie  was  a  very  particular  child.  Once  he 
accepted  an  acquaintance,  he  was  graciously  pleased  to 
thaw.  He  accepted  Brandis,  a  subaltern  of  the  195th, 
on  sight.  Brandis  was  having  tea  at  the  Colonel's,  and 
Wee  Willie  Winkie  entered  strong  in  the  possession  of 
a  good-conduct  badge  won  for  not  chasing  the  hens 

242 


WEE  WILLIE  WINKIE 

round  the  compound.  He  regarded  Brandis  with  gravity 
for  at  least  ten  minutes,  and  then  delivered  himself  of 
his  opinion. 

"I  like  you,"  said  he  slowly,  getting  off  his  chair  and 
coming  over  to  Brandis.  "I  like  you.  I  shall  call  you 
Coppy,  because  of  your  hair.  Do  you  mind  being  called 
Coppy?    It  is  because  of  ve  hair,  you  know." 

Here  was  one  of  the  most  embarrassing  of  Wee  Willie 
Winkie's  peculiarities.  He  would  look  at  a  stranger  for 
some  time,  and  then,  without  warning  or  explanation, 
would  give  him  a  name.  And  the  name  stuck.  No  regi- 
mental penalties  could  break  Wee  Willie  Winkie  of 
this  habit.  He  lost  his  good-conduct  badge  for  christen- 
ing the  Commissioner's  wife  "Pobs;"  but  nothing  that 
the  Colonel  could  do  made  the  Station  forego  the  nick- 
name, and  Mrs.  Collen  remained  "Pobs"  till  the  end 
of  her  stay.  So  Brandis  was  christened  "Coppy,"  and 
rose,  therefore,  in  the  estimation  of  the  regiment. 

If  Wee  Willie  Winkie  took  an  interest  in  any  one, 
the  fortunate  man  was  envied  alike  by  the  mess  and 
the  rank  and  file.  And  in  their  envy  lay  no  suspicion 
of  self-interest.  "The  Colonel's  son"  was  idolized  on 
his  own  merits  entirely.  Yet  Wee  Willie  Winkie  was 
not  lovely.  His  face  was  permanently  freckled,  as  his 
legs  were  permanently  scratched;  and  in  spite  of  his 
mother's  almost  tearful  remonstrances,  he  had  insisted 
upon  having  his  long  yellow  locks  cut  short,  in  the  mili- 
tary fashion.  "I  want  my  hair  like  Sergeant  TummiPs," 
said  Wee  Willie  Winkie,  and  his  father  abetting,  the 
sacrifice  was  accomplished. 

Three  weeks  after  the  bestowal  of  his  youthful  affec- 

243 


MODERN  STORIES 

tions  on  Lieutenant  Brandis — henceforward  to  be  called 
"Coppy"  for  the  sake  of  brevity  —  Wee  Willie  Winkie 
was  destined  to  behold  strange  things,  and  far  beyond 
his  comprehension. 

Coppy  returned  his  liking  with  interest.  Coppy  had 
let  him  wear  for  five  rapturous  minutes  his  own  big 
sword  —  just  as  tall  as  Wee  Willie  Winkie.  Coppy 
had  promised  him  a  terrier  puppy,  and  Coppy  had 
permitted  him  to  witness  the  miraculous  operation  of 
shaving.  Nay,  more  —  Coppy  had  said  that  even  he, 
Wee  Willie  Winkie,  would  rise  in  time  to  the  owner- 
ship of  a  box  of  shiny  knives,  a  silver  soap-box,  and  a 
silver-handled  "sputter-brush,"  as  Wee  Willie  Winkie 
called  it.  Decidedly,  there  was  no  one  except  his  fa- 
ther who  could  give  or  take  away  good-conduct  badges 
at  pleasure,  half  so  wise,  strong,  and  valiant  as  Coppy, 
with  the  Afghan  and  Egyptian  medals  on  his  breast. 
Why,  then,  should  Coppy  be  guilty  of  the  unmanly 
weakness  of  kissing  —  vehemently  kissing  —  a  "big 
girl,"  Miss  Allardyce,  to  wit  ?  In  the  course  of  a  morn- 
ing ride,  Wee  Willie  Winkie  had  seen  Coppy  so  doing, 
and,  like  the  gentleman  he  was,  had  promptly  wheeled 
round  and  cantered  back  to  his  groom,  lest  the  groom 
should  also  see. 

Under  ordinary  circumstances  he  would  have  spoken 
to  his  father,  but  he  felt  instinctively  that  this  was  a 
matter  on  which  Coppy  ought  first  to  be  consulted. 

"Coppy,"  shouted  Wee  Willie  Winkie,  reining  up 
outside  that  subaltern's  bungalow  early  one  morning. 
"I  want  to  see  you,  Coppy!" 

"Come  in,  young  'un,"  returned  Coppy,  who  was  at 

244 


WEE  WILLIE  WINKIE 

early  breakfast  in  the  midst  of  his  dogs.  "What  mis- 
chief have  you  been  getting  into  now  ? " 

Wee  Willie  Winkie  had  done  nothing  notoriously  bad 
for  three  days,  and  so  stood  on  a  pinnacle  of  virtue. 

"I've  been  doing  nothing  bad,"  said  he,  curling  him- 
self into  a  long  chair  with  a  studious  affectation  of  the 
Colonel's  languor  after  a  hot  parade.  He  buried  his 
freckled  nose  in  a  tea-cup  and,  with  eyes  staring  roundly 
over  the  rim,  asked:  "I  say,  Coppy,  is  it  pwoper  to  kiss 
big  girls  ?  " 

"By  Jove!  You  're  beginning  early.  Who  do  you 
want  to  kiss?" 

"No  one.  My  muwer  's  always  kissing  me  if  I  don't 
stop  her.  If  it  is  n't  pwoper,  how  was  you  kissing  Major 
Allardyce's  big  girl  last  morning,  by  ve  canal  ?  " 

Coppy 's  brow  wrinkled.  He  and  Miss  Allardyce  had 
with  great  craft  managed  to  keep  their  engagement 
secret  for  a  fortnight.  There  were  urgent  and  impera- 
tive reasons  why  Major  Allardyce  should  not  know 
how  matters  stood  for  at  least  another  month,  and  this 
small  marplot  had  discovered  a  great  deal  too  much. 

"I  saw  you,"  said  Wee  Willie  Winkie  calmly.  "But 
ve  sais  did  n't  see.    I  said,  'Hut  jaoJ'" 

"Oh,  you  had  that  much  sense,  you  young  Rip," 
groaned  poor  Coppy,  half  amused  and  half  angry. 
"And  how  many  people  may  you  have  told  about  it  ?" 

"Only  me  myself.  You  did  n't  tell  when  I  twied  to 
wide  ve  buffalo  ven  my  pony  was  lame;  and  I  fought 
you  would  n't  like." 

"Winkie,"  said  Coppy  enthusiastically,  shaking  the 
small  hand,  "you  're  the  best  of  good  fellows.    Look 

245 


MODERN   STORIES 

here,  you  can't  understand  all  these  things.  One  of 
these  days  —  hang  it,  how  can  I  make  you  see  it !  —  I  'm 
going  to  marry  Miss  Allardyce,  and  then  she'll  be  Mrs. 
Coppy,  as  you  say.  If  your  young  mind  is  so  scandalized 
at  the  idea  of  kissing  big  girls,  go  and  tell  your  father." 

"What  will  happen  ?"  said  Wee  Willie  Winkie,  who 
firmly  believed  that  his  father  was  omnipotent. 

"I  shall  get  into  trouble,"  said  Coppy,  playing  his 
trump  card  with  an  appealing  look  at  the  holder  of  the 
ace. 

"  Ven  I  won't,"  said  Wee  Willie  Winkie  briefly.  "But 
my  faver  says  it's  un-man-ly  to  be  always  kissing,  and 
I  didn't  fink  you  *d  do  vat,  Coppy." 

"I'm  not  always  kissing,  old  chap.  It's  only  now 
and  then,  and  when  you  're  bigger  you  '11  do  it  too.  Your 
father  meant  it's  not  good  for  little  boys." 

"Ah!"  said  Wee  Willie  Winkie,  now  fully  enlight- 
ened.   "It's  like  ve  sputter-brush?" 

"Exactly,"  said  Coppy  gravely 

"But  I  don't  fink  I'll  ever  want  to  kiss  big  girls,  nor 
no  one,  'cept  my  muvver.  And  I  must  vat,  you  know." 

There  was  a  long  pause,  broken  by  Wee  Willie 
Winkie. 

"Are  you  fond  of  vis  big  girl,  Coppy?" 

"Awfully!"  said  Coppy. 

"Fonder  van  you  are  of  Bell  or  ve  Butcha  —  or  me?" 

"It's  in  a  different  way,"  said  Coppy.  "You  see,  one 
of  these  days  Miss  Allardyce  will  belong  to  me,  but 
you  '11  grow  up  and  command  the  Regiment  and  —  all 
sorts  of  things.    It's  quite  different,  you  see." 

"Very  well,"  said  Wee  Willie  Winkie,  rising.     "If 

246 


WEE  WILLIE  WINKIE 

you  're  fond  of  ve  big  girl,  I  won't  tell  any  one.   I  must 
go  now." 

Coppy  rose  and  escorted  his  small  guest  to  the  door, 
adding,  —  "You  're  the  best  of  little  fellows,  Winkie.  I 
tell  you  what:  in  thirty  days  from  now  you  can  tell  if 
you  like  —  tell  any  one  you  like." 

Thus  the  secret  of  the  Brandis-Allardyce  engage- 
ment was  dependent  on  a  little  child's  word.  Coppy, 
who  knew  Wee  Willie  Winkie's  idea  of  truth,  was  at 
ease,  for  he  felt  that  he  would  not  break  promises.  Wee 
Willie  Winkie  betrayed  a  special  and  unusual  interest 
in  Miss  Allardyce,  and,  slowly  revolving  round  that  em- 
barrassed young  lady,  was  used  to  regard  her  gravely 
with  unwinking  eye.  He  was  trying  to  discover  why 
Coppy  should  have  kissed  her.  She  was  not  half  so  nice 
as  his  own  mother.  On  the  other  hand,  she  was  Coppy 's 
property,  and  would  in  time  belong  to  him.  Therefore 
it  behooved  him  to  treat  her  with  as  much  respect  as 
Coppy 's  big  sword  or  shiny  pistol. 

The  idea  that  he  shared  a  great  secret  in  common 
with  Coppy  kept  Wee  Willie  Winkie  unusually  virtu- 
ous for  three  weeks.  Then  the  Old  Adam  broke  out, 
and  he  made  what  he  called  a  "camp-fire"  at  the  bot- 
tom of  the  garden.  How  could  he  have  foreseen  that 
the  flying  sparks  would  have  lighted  the  Colonel's  little 
hay-rick  and  consumed  a  week's  store  for  the  horses  ? 
Sudden  and  swift  was  the  punishment,  —  deprivation 
of  the  good-conduct  badge  and,  most  sorrowful  of  all, 
two  days'  confinement  to  barracks, — the  house  and 
veranda,  —  coupled  with  the  withdrawal  of  the  light  of 
his  father's  countenance. 

247 


MODERN  STORIES 

He  took  the  sentence  like  the  man  he  strove  to  be, 
drew  himself  up  with  a  quivering  under-lip,  saluted, 
and,  once  clear  of  the  room,  ran  to  weep  bitterly  in  his 
nursery  —  called  by  him  "my  quarters."  Coppy  came 
in  the  afternoon  and  attempted  to  console  the  culprit. 

"I'm  under  awwest,"  said  Wee  Willie  Winkie  mourn- 
fully, "and  I  did  n't  ought  to  speak  to  you." 

Very  early  the  next  morning  he  climbed  on  to  the 
roof  of  the  house  —  that  was  not  forbidden  —  and  be- 
held Miss  Allardyce  going  for  a  ride. 

"Where  are  you  going?"  cried  Wee  Willie  Winkie. 

"Across  the  river,"  she  answered,  and  trotted  for- 
ward. 

Now  the  cantonment  in  which  the  195th  lay  was 
bounded  on  the  north  by  a  river,  dry  in  the  winter. 
From  his  earliest  years,  Wee  Willie  Winkie  had  been 
forbidden  to  go  across  the  river,  and  had  noted  that 
even  Coppy  —  the  almost  almighty  Coppy  —  had  never 
set  foot  beyond  it.  Wee  Willie  Winkie  had  once  been 
read  to,  out  of  a  big  blue  book,  the  history  of  the  Prin- 
cess and  the  Goblins  —  a  most  wonderful  tale  of  a  land 
where  the  Goblins  were  always  warring  with  the  chil- 
dren of  men,  until  they  were  defeated  by  one  Curdie. 
Ever  since  that  date  it  seemed  to  him  that  the  bare 
black  and  purple  hills  across  the  river  were  inhabited 
by  Goblins,  and,  in  truth,  every  one  had  said  that  there 
lived  the  Bad  Men.  Even  in  his  own  house  the  lower 
halves  of  the  windows  were  covered  with  green  paper 
on  account  of  the  Bad  Men  who  might,  if  allowed  clear 
view,  fire  into  peaceful  drawing-rooms  and  comfortable 
bedrooms.    Certainly,  beyond  the  river,  which  was  the 

248 


WEE  WILLIE  WINKIE 

end  of  all  the  earth,  lived  the  Bad  Men.  And  here  was 
Major  Allardyce's  big  girl,  Coppy's  property,  prepar- 
ing to  venture  into  their  borders  !  What  would  Coppy 
say  if  anything  happened  to  her?  If  the  Goblins  ran 
off  with  her,  as  they  did  with  Curdie's  Princess  ?  She 
must  at  all  hazards  be  turned  back. 

The  house  was  still.  Wee  Willie  Winkie  reflected 
for  a  moment  on  the  very  terrible  wrath  of  his  father ; 
and  then  —  broke  his  arrest !  It  was  a  crime  unspeak- 
able. The  low  sun  threw  his  shadow,  very  large  and 
very  black,  on  the  trim  garden-paths,  as  he  went  down 
to  the  stables  and  ordered  his  pony.  It  seemed  to  him, 
in  the  hush  of  the  dawn,  that  all  the  big  world  had  been 
bidden  to  stand  still  and  look  at  Wee  Willie  Winkie 
guilty  of  mutiny.  The  drowsy  sais  gave  him  his  mount, 
and,  since  the  one  great  sin  made  all  others  insignifi- 
cant, Wee  Willie  Winkie  said  that  he  was  going  to 
ride  over  to  Coppy  Sahib,  and  went  out  at  a  footpace, 
stepping  on  the  soft  mould  of  the  flower  borders. 

The  devastating  track  of  the  pony's  feet  was  the  last 
misdeed  that  cut  him  off  from  all  sympathy  of  human- 
ity. He  turned  into  the  road,  leaned  forward,  and  rode 
as  fast  as  the  pony  could  put  foot  to  the  ground  in  the 
direction  of  the  river. 

But  the  liveliest  of  twelve-two  ponies  can  do  little 
against  the  long  canter  of  a  Waler.  Miss  Allardyce 
was  far  ahead,  had  passed  through  the  crops,  beyond 
the  police-posts,  when  all  the  guards  were  asleep,  and 
her  mount  was  scattering  the  pebbles  of  the  river-bed 
as  Wee  Willie  Winkie  left  the  cantonment  and  British 
India  behind  him.    Bowed  forward  and  still  flogging, 

249 


MODERN  STORIES 

Wee  Willie  Winkie  shot  into  Afghan  territory,  and 
could  just  see  Miss  Allardyce  a  black  speck,  flickering 
across  the  stony  plain.  The  reason  of  her  wandering 
was  simple  enough.  Coppy,  in  a  tone  of  too-hastily- 
assumed  authority,  had  told  her  over  night  that  she 
must  not  ride  out  by  the  river.  And  she  had  gone  to 
prove  her  own  spirit  and  teach  Coppy  a  lesson. 

Almost  at  the  foot  of  the  inhospitable  hills,  Wee 
Willie  Winkie  saw  the  Waler  blunder  and  come  down 
heavily.  Miss  Allardyce  struggled  clear,  but  her  ankle 
had  been  severely  twisted,  and  she  could  not  stand. 
Having  fully  shown  her  spirit,  she  wept,  and  was  sur- 
prised by  the  apparition  of  a  white,  wide-eyed  child  in 
khaki,  on  a  nearly  spent  pony. 

"Are  you  badly,  badly  hurted  ?"  shouted  Wee  Willie 
Winkie,  as  soon  as  he  was  within  range.  "You  did  n't 
ought  to  be  here." 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Miss  Allardyce  ruefully,  ignor- 
ing the  reproof.  "Good  gracious,  child,  what  are  you 
doing  here  ?  " 

"You  said  you  was  going  acwoss  ve  wiver,"  panted 
Wee  Willie  Winkie,  throwing  himself  off  his  pony. 
"And  nobody  —  not  even  Coppy  —  must  go  acwoss  ve 
wiver,  and  I  came  after  you  ever  so  hard,  but  you 
would  n't  stop,  and  now  you  've  hurted  yourself,  and 
Coppy  will  be  angwy  wiv  me,  and  —  I  've  bwoken  my 
awwest!    I've  bwoken  my  awwest!" 

The  future  colonel  of  the  195th  sat  down  and  sobbed. 
In  spite  of  the  pain  in  her  ankle  the  girl  was  moved. 

"Have  you  ridden  all  the  way  from  cantonments, 
little  man?    What  for?" 

250 


WEE  WILLIE  WINKIE 

"You  belonged  to  Coppy.  Coppy  told  me  so!" 
wailed  Wee  Willie  Winkie  disconsolately.  "I  saw  him 
kissing  you,  and  he  said  he  was  fonder  of  you  van  Bell 
or  ve  Butcha  or  me.  And  so  I  came.  You  must  get  up 
and  come  back.  You  did  n't  ought  to  be  here.  Vis  is 
a  bad  place,  and  I've  bwoken  my  awwest." 

"I  can't  move,  Winkie,"  said  Miss  Allardyce,  with  a 
groan.    "I've  hurt  my  foot.    What  shall  I  do?" 

She  showed  a  readiness  to  weep  anew,  which  steadied 
Wee  Willie  Winkie,  who  had  been  brought  up  to  be- 
lieve that  tears  were  the  depth  of  unmanliness.  Still, 
when  one  is  as  great  a  sinner  as  Wee  Willie  Winkie, 
even  a  man  may  be  permitted  to  break  down. 

"Winkie,"  said  Miss  Allardyce,  "when  you've  rested 
a  little,  ride  back  and  tell  them  to  send  out  something 
to  carry  me  back  in.    It  hurts  fearfully." 

The  child  sat  still  for  a  little  time  and  Miss  Allardyce 
closed  her  eyes;  the  pain  was  nearly  making  her  faint. 
She  was  roused  by  Wee  Willie  Winkie  tying  up  the 
reins  on  his  pony's  neck  and  setting  it  free  with  a  vicious 
cut  of  his  whip  that  made  it  whicker.  The  little  animal 
headed  towards  the  cantonments. 

"Oh,  Winkie!    What  are  you  doing?" 

"Hush!"  said  Wee  Willie  Winkie.  "Vere's  a  man 
coming  —  one  of  ve  Bad  Men.  I  must  stay  wiv  you. 
My  faver  says  a  man  must  always  look  after  a  girl. 
Jack  will  go  home,  and  ven  vey'll  come  and  look  for 
us.    Vat's  why  I  let  him  go." 

Not  one  man  but  two  or  three  had  appeared  from 
behind  the  rocks  of  the  hills,  and  the  heart  of  Wee  Willie 
Winkie  sank  within  him,  for  just  in  this  manner  were 

251 


MODERN  STORIES 

the  Goblins  wont  to  steal  out  and  vex  Curdie's  soul. 
Thus  had  they  played  in  Curdie's  garden,  he  had  seen 
the  picture,  and  thus  had  they  frightened  the  Princess's 
nurse.  He  heard  them  talking  to  each  other,  and  recog- 
nized with  joy  the  bastard  Pushto  that  he  had  picked 
up  from  one  of  his  father's  grooms  lately  dismissed. 
People  who  spoke  that  tongue  could  not  be  the  Bad 
Men.    They  were  only  natives,  after  all. 

They  came  up  to  the  boulders  on  which  Miss  Allar- 
dyce's  horse  had  blundered. 

Then  rose  from  the  rock  Wee  Willie  Winkie,  child 
of  the  dominant  race,  aged  six  and  three-quarters,  and 
said  briefly  and  emphatically,  "Jao/"  The  pony  had 
crossed  the  river-bed. 

The  men  laughed,  and  laughter  from  natives  was  the 
one  thing  Wee  Willie  Winkie  could  not  tolerate.  He 
asked  them  what  they  wanted  and  why  they  did  not 
depart.  Other  men  with  most  evil  faces  and  crooked- 
stocked  guns  crept  out  of  the  shadows  of  the  hills,  till, 
soon,  Wee  Willie  Winkie  was  face  to  face  with  an  au- 
dience some  twenty  strong.    Miss  Allardyce  screamed. 

"  Who  are  you?"  said  one  of  the  men. 

"I  am  the  Colonel  Sahib's  son,  and  my  order  is  that 
you  go  at  once.  You  black  men  are  frightening  the  Miss 
Sahib.  One  of  you  must  run  into  cantonments  and  take 
the  news  that  the  Miss  Sahib  has  hurt  herself,  and  that 
the  Colonel's  son  is  here  with  her." 

"  Put  our  feet  into  the  trap  ?  "  was  the  laughing  reply. 
"  Hear  this  boy's  speech ! " 

"  Say  that  I  sent  you  —  I,  the  Colonel's  son.  They 
will  give  you  money." 

252 


WEE  WILLIE  WINKIE 

'*  What  is  the  use  of  this  talk  ?  Take  up  the  child  and 
the  girl,  and  we  can  at  least  ask  for  the  ransom.  Ours 
are  the  villages  on  the  heights,"  said  a  voice  in  the  back- 
ground. 

These  were  the  Bad  Men,  —  worse  than  Goblins,  — 
and  it  needed  all  Wee  Willie  Winkie's  training  to  pre- 
vent him  from  bursting  into  tears.  But  he  felt  that  to 
cry  before  a  native,  excepting  only  his  mother's  ayah, 
would  be  an  infamy  greater  than  any  mutiny.  More- 
over, he,  as  future  colonel  of  the  195th,  had  that  grim 
regiment  at  his  back. 

"Are  you  going  to  carry  us  away?"  said  Wee  Willie 
Winkie,  very  blanched  and  uncomfortable. 

"  Yes,  my  little  Sahib  Bahadur"  said  the  tallest  of  the 
men,  "  and  eat  you  afterwards." 

"  That  is  child's  talk,"  said  Wee  Willie  Winkie.  "  Men 
do  not  eat  men." 

A  yell  of  laughter  interrupted  him,  but  he  went  on 
firmly,  —  "  And  if  you  do  carry  us  away,  I  tell  you  that 
all  my  regiment  will  come  up  in  a  day  and  kill  you  all 
without  leaving  one.  Who  will  take  my  message  to  the 
Colonel  Sahib?" 

Speech  in  any  vernacular  —  and  Wee  Willie  Winkie 
had  a  colloquial  acquaintance  with  three  —  was  easy 
to  the  boy,  who  could  not  yet  manage  his  "r's"  and 
"th's  "  aright. 

Another  man  joined  the  conference,  crying :  "  O  fool- 
ish men !  What  this  babe  says  is  true.  He  is  the  heart's 
heart  of  those  white  troops.  For  the  sake  of  peace  let 
them  go  both;  for  if  he  be  taken,  the  regiment  will  break 
loose  and  gut  the  valley.    Our  villages  are  in  the  valley, 

253 


MODERN  STORIES 

and  we  shall  not  escape.  That  regiment  are  devils.  They 
broke  Khoda  Yar's  breastbone  with  kicks  when  he  tried 
to  take  the  rifles;  and  if  we  touch  this  child  they  will 
fire  and  rape  and  plunder  for  a  month,  till  nothing  re- 
mains. Better  to  send  a  man  back  to  take  the  message 
and  get  a  reward.  I  say  that  this  child  is  their  god,  and 
that  they  will  spare  none  of  us,  nor  our  women,  if  we 
harm  him." 

It  was  Din  Mahommed,  the  dismissed  groom  of  the 
Colonel,  who  made  the  diversion,  and  an  angry  and 
heated  discussion  followed.  Wee  Willie  Winkie,  stand- 
ing over  Miss  Allardyce,  waited  the  upshot.  Surely  his 
"  wegiment,"  his  own  "  wegiment,"  would  not  desert 
him  if  they  knew  of  his  extremity.   .   .   . 

The  riderless  pony  brought  the  news  to  the  195th, 
though  there  had  been  consternation  in  the  Colonel's 
household  for  an  hour  before.  The  little  beast  came  in 
through  the  parade-ground  in  front  of  the  main  bar- 
racks, where  the  men  were  settling  down  to  play  Spoil- 
five  till  the  afternoon.  Devlin,  the  Color-Sergeant  of 
E  Company,  glanced  at  the  empty  saddle  and  tumbled 
through  the  barrack-rooms,  kicking  up  each  Room 
Corporal  as  he  passed.  "  Up,  ye  beggars !  There's  some- 
thing happened  to  the  Colonel's  son,"  he  shouted. 

"  He  could  n't  fall  off !  S'elp  me,  'e  could  n't  fall  off," 
blubbered  a  drummer-boy.  "  Go  an'  hunt  acrost  the 
river.  He's  over  there  if  he's  anywhere,  an'  maybe  those 
Pathans  have  got  'im.  For  the  love  o'  Gawd  don't  look 
for  'im  in  the  nullahs!    Let's  go  over  the  river." 

"  There's  sense  in  Mott  yet,"  said  Devlin.  "  E  Com- 
pany, double  out  to  the  river  —  sharp ! " 

254 


WEE  WILLIE  WINKIE 

So  E  Company,  in  its  shirt-sleeves  mainly,  doubled 
for  the  dear  life,  and  in  the  rear  toiled  the  perspiring 
Sergeant,  adjuring  it  to  double  yet  faster.  The  canton- 
ment was  alive  with  the  men  of  the  195th  hunting  for 
Wee  Willie  Winkie,  and  the  Colonel  finally  overtook  E 
Company,  far  too  exhausted  to  swear,  struggling  in  the 
pebbles  of  the  river-bed. 

Up  the  hill  under  which  Wee  Willie  Winkie's  Bad 
Men  were  discussing  the  wisdom  of  carrying  off  the 
child  and  the  girl,  a  look-out  fired  two  shots. 

"What  have  I  said?"  shouted  Din  Mahommed. 
"There  is  the  warning!  The  pulton  are  out  already 
and  are  coming  across  the  plain !  Get  away !  Let  us  not 
be  seen  with  the  boy!" 

The  men  waited  for  an  instant,  and  then,  as  another 
shot  was  fired,  withdrew  into  the  hills,  silently  as  they 
had  appeared. 

"  The  wegiment  is  coming,"  said  Wee  Willie  Winkie 
confidently  to  Miss  Allardyce,  "  and  it 's  all  wight.  Don't 
cwy!" 

He  needed  the  advice  himself,  for  ten  minutes  later, 
when  his  father  came  up,  he  was  weeping  bitterly  with 
his  head  in  Miss  Allardyce's  lap. 

And  the  men  of  the  195th  carried  him  home  with 
shouts  and  rejoicings;  and  Coppy,  who  had  ridden  a 
horse  into  a  lather,  met  him,  and,  to  his  intense  disgust, 
kissed  him  openly  in  the  presence  of  the  men. 

But  there  was  balm  for  his  dignity.  His  father  as- 
sured him  that  not  only  would  the  breaking  of  arrest  be 
condoned,  but  that  the  good-conduct  badge  would  be 
restored  as  soon  as  his  mother  could  sew  it  on  his  blouse 

255 


MODERN  STORIES 

sleeve.  Miss  Allardyce  had  told  the  Colonel  a  story  that 
made  him  proud  of  his  son. 

"She  belonged  to  you,  Coppy,"  said  Wee  Willie  Win- 
kie,  indicating  Miss  Allardyce  with  a  grimy  forefinger. 
"I  knew  she  did  n't  ought  to  go  acwoss  ve  wiver,  and  I 
knew  ve  wegiment  would  come  to  me  if  I  sent  Jack 
home." 

"You're  a  hero,  Winkie,"  said  Coppy  —  "a  pukka 
hero!" 

"I  don't  know  what  vat  means,"  said  Wee  Willie 
Winkie,  "but  you  must  n't  call  me  Winkie  any  no  more. 
I'm  Percival  Will'am  Will'ams." 

And  in  this  manner  did  Wee  Willie  Winkie  enter  into 
his  manhood. 


THE   ARCHERY  CONTEST 

By  Sir  Walter  Scott 

THE  sound  of  the  trumpets  soon  recalled  those  spec- 
tators who  had  already  begun  to  leave  the  field; 
and  proclamation  was  made  that  Prince  John,  suddenly 
called  by  high  and  peremptory  public  duties,  held  him- 
self obliged  to  discontinue  the  entertainments  of  to- 
morrow's festival;  nevertheless,  that,  unwilling  so  many 
good  yeomen  should  depart  without  a  trial  of  skill,  he 
was  pleased  to  appoint  them,  before  leaving  the  ground, 
presently  to  execute  the  competition  of  archery  intended 
for  the  morrow.  To  the  best  archer,  a  prize  was  to  be 
awarded,  being  a  bugle-horn,  mounted  with  silver,  and 
a  silken  baldric  richly  ornamented  with  a  medallion  of 
Saint  Hubert,  the  patron  of  sylvan  sport. 

More  than  thirty  yeomen  at  first  presented  themselves 
as  competitors,  several  of  whom  were  rangers  and  under- 
keepers  in  the  royal  forests  of  Needwood  and  Charn- 
wood.  When,  however,  the  archers  understood  with 
whom  they  were  to  be  matched,  upwards  of  twenty 
withdrew  themselves  from  the  contest,  unwilling  to  en- 
counter the  dishonor  of  almost  certain  defeat.  For  in 
those  days  the  skill  of  each  celebrated  marksman  was 
as  well  known  for  many  miles  round  him  as  the  quali- 
ties of  a  horse  trained  at  Newmarket  are  familiar  to 
those  who  frequent  that  well-known  meeting. 

257 


MODERN   STORIES 

The  diminished  list  of  competitors  for  sylvan  fame 
still  amounted  to  eight.  Prince  John  stepped  from  his 
royal  seat  to  view  more  nearly  the  persons  of  these 
chosen  yeomen,  several  of  whom  wore  the  royal  livery. 
Having  satisfied  his  curiosity  by  this  investigation,  he 
looked  for  the  object  of  his  resentment,  whom  he  ob- 
served standing  on  the  same  spot,  and  with  the  same 
composed  countenance  which  he  had  exhibited  upon  the 
preceding  day. 

"Fellow,"  said  Prince  John,  "I  guessed  by  thy  in- 
solent babble  thou  wert  no  true  lover  of  the  long-bow, 
and  I  see  thou  darest  not  adventure  thy  skill  among 
such  merry-men  as  stand  yonder." 

"Under  favor,  sir,"  replied  the  yeoman,  "I  have  an- 
other reason  for  refraining  to  shoot,  besides  the  fearing 
discomfiture  and  disgrace." 

"  And  what  is  thy  other  reason  ? "  said  Prince  John, 
who,  for  some  cause  which  perhaps  he  could  not  him- 
self have  explained,  felt  a  painful  curiosity  respecting 
this  individual. 

"Because,"  replied  the  woodsman,  "I  know  not  if 
these  yeomen  and  I  are  used  to  shoot  at  the  same  marks ; 
and  because,  moreover,  I  know  not  how  your  Grace 
might  relish  the  winning  of  a  third  prize  by  one  who 
has  unwittingly  fallen  under  your  displeasure." 

Prince  John  colored  as  he  put  the  question,  "What 
is  thy  name,  yeoman  ? " 

"  Locksley,"  answered  the  yeoman. 

"Then,  Locksley,"  said  Prince  John,  "thou  shalt 
shoot  in  thy  turn,  when  these  yeomen  have  displayed 
their  skill.    If  thou  carriest  the  prize,  I  will  add  to  it 

258 


THE  ARCHERY  CONTEST 

twenty  nobles ;  but  if  thou  losest  it,  thou  shalt  be  stripped 
of  thy  Lincoln  green,  and  scourged  out  of  the  lists  with 
bow-strings,  for  a  wordy  and  insolent  braggart." 

"And  how  if  I  refuse  to  shoot  on  such  a  wager?" 
said  the  yeoman.  "Your  Grace's  power,  supported, 
as  it  is,  by  so  many  men-at-arms,  may  indeed  easily 
strip  and  scourge  me,  but  cannot  compel  me  to  bend 
or  to  draw  my  bow." 

"If  thou  refusest  my  fair  proffer,"  said  the  Prince, 
"  the  Provost  of  the  lists  shall  cut  thy  bow-string,  break 
thy  bow  and  arrows,  and  expel  thee  from  the  presence 
as  a  faint-hearted  craven." 

"  This  is  no  fair  chance  you  put  on  me,  proud  Prince," 
said  the  yeoman,  "  to  compel  me  to  peril  myself  against 
the  best  archers  of  Leicester  and  Staffordshire,  under 
the  penalty  of  infamy  if  they  should  overshoot  me. 
Nevertheless,  I  will  obey  your  pleasure." 

"Look  to  him  close,  men-at-arms,"  said  Prince  John, 
"his  heart  is  sinking;  I  am  jealous  lest  he  attempt  to 
escape  the  trial.  And  do  you,  good  fellows,  shoot  boldly 
round;  a  buck  and  a  butt  of  wine  are  ready  for  your 
refreshment  in  yonder  tent,  when  the  prize  is  won." 

A  target  was  placed  at  the  upper  end  of  the  southern 
avenue  which  led  to  the  lists.  The  contending  archers 
took  their  station  in  turn,  at  the  bottom  of  the  southern 
access;  the  distance  between  that  station  and  the  mark 
allowing  full  distance  for  what  was  called  a  shot  at 
rovers.  The  archers,  having  previously  determined  by 
lot  their  order  of  precedence,  were  to  shoot  each  three 
shafts  in  succession.  The  sports  were  regulated  by  an 
officer  of  inferior  rank,  termed  the  Provost  of  the  Games,* 

259 


MODERN  STORIES 

for  the  high  rank  of  the  marshals  of  the  lists  would  have 
been  held  degraded  had  they  condescended  to  superin- 
tend the  sports  of  the  yeomanry. 

One  by  one  the  archers,  stepping  forward,  delivered 
their  shafts  yeomanlike  and  bravely.  Of  twenty-four 
arrows,  shot  in  succession,  ten  were  fixed  in  the  target, 
and  the  others  ranged  so  near  it  that,  considering  the  dis- 
tance of  the  mark,  it  was  accounted  good  archery.  Of 
the  ten  shafts  which  hit  the  target,  two  within  the  inner 
ring  were  shot  by  Hubert,  a  forester  in  the  service  of 
Malvoisin,  who  was  accordingly  pronounced  victorious. 

"Now,  Locksley,"  said  Prince  John  to  the  bold  yeo- 
man, with  a  bitter  smile,  "wilt  thou  try  conclusions 
with  Hubert,  or  wilt  thou  yield  up  bow,  baldric,  and 
quiver,  to  the  Provost  of  the  sports  ? " 

"Sith  it  be  no  better,"  said  Locksley,  "I  am  content 
to  try  my  fortune;  on  condition  that  when  I  have  shot 
two  shafts  at  yonder  mark  of  Hubert's,  he  shall  be  bound 
to  shoot  one  at  that  which  I  shall  propose." 

"That  is  but  fair,"  answered  Prince  John,  "and  it 
shall  not  be  refused  thee.  If  thou  dost  beat  this  braggart, 
Hubert,  I  will  fill  the  bugle  with  silver  pennies  for  thee." 

"A  man  can  but  do  his  best,"  answered  Hubert;  "but 
my  grandsire  drew  a  good  long-bow  at  Hastings,  and 
I  trust  not  to  dishonor  his  memory." 

The  former  target  was  now  removed,  and  a  fresh 
one  of  the  same  size  placed  in  its  room.  Hubert,  who, 
as  victor  in  the  first  trial  of  skill,  had  the  right  to  shoot 
first,  took  his  aim  with  great  deliberation,  long  measur- 
ing the  distance  with  his  eye,  while  he  held  in  his  hand 
his  bended  bow,  with  the  arrow  placed  on  the  string. 

260 


THE  ARCHERY  CONTEST 

At  length  he  made  a  step  forward,  and  raising  the  bow 
at  the  full  stretch  of  his  left  arm,  till  the  centre  or  grasp- 
ing-place was  nigh  level  with  his  face,  he  drew  his  bow- 
string to  his  ear.  The  arrow  whistled  through  the  air, 
and  lighted  within  the  inner  ring  of  the  target,  but  not 
exactly  in  the  centre. 

"You  have  not  allowed  for  the  wind,  Hubert,"  said 
his  antagonist,  bending  his  bow,  "or  that  had  been  a 
better  shot." 

So  saying,  and  without  showing  the  least  anxiety  to 
pause  upon  his  aim,  Locksley  stepped  to  the  appointed 
station,  and  shot  his  arrow  as  carelessly  in  appearance 
as  if  he  had  not  even  looked  at  the  mark.  He  was  speak- 
ing almost  at  the  instant  that  the  shaft  left  the  bow- 
string, yet  it  alighted  in  the  target  two  inches  nearer 
to  the  white  spot  which  marked  the  centre  than  that  of 
Hubert. 

"By  the  light  of  heaven!"  said  Prince  John  to  Hu- 
bert; "an  thou  suffer  that  runagate  knave  to  overcome 
thee,  thou  art  worthy  of  the  gallows  !" 

Hubert  had  but  one  set  speech  for  all  occasions.  "An 
your  highness  were  to  hang  me,"  he  said,  "a  man  can 
but  do  his  best.  Nevertheless,  my  grandsire  drew  a 
good  bow  "  — 

"The  foul  fiend  on  thy  grandsire  and  all  his  genera- 
tion!" interrupted  John;  "shoot,  knave,  and  shoot  thy 
best,  or  it  shall  be  worse  for  thee!" 

Thus  exhorted,  Hubert  resumed  his  place,  and  not 
neglecting  the  caution  which  he  had  received  from  his 
adversary,  he  made  the  necessary  allowance  for  a  very 
light  air  of  wind,  which  had  just  arisen,  and  shot  so 

261 


MODERN  STORIES 

successfully  that  his  arrow  alighted  in  the  very  centre 
of  the  target. 

"A  Hubert!  a  Hubert!"  shouted  the  populace,  more 
interested  in  a  known  person  than  in  a  stranger.  "In 
the  clout!  in  the  clout!  a  Hubert  forever!" 

"Thou  canst  not  mend  that  shot,  Locksley,"  said  the 
Prince,  with  an  insulting  smile. 

"I  will  notch  his  shaft  for  him,  however,"  replied 
Locksley. 

And  letting  fly  his  arrow  with  a  little  more  precaution 
than  before,  it  lighted  right  upon  that  of  his  competitor, 
which  it  split  to  shivers.  The  people  who  stood  around 
were  so  astonished  at  his  wonderful  dexterity  that  they 
could  not  even  give  vent  to  their  surprise  in  their  usual 
clamor.  "This  must  be  the  devil,  and  no  man  of  flesh 
and  blood,"  whispered  the  yeomen  to  each  other;  "such 
archery  was  never  seen  since  a  bow  was  first  bent  in 
Britain." 

"And  now,"  said  Locksley,  "I  will  crave  your  Grace's 
permission  to  plant  such  a  mark  as  is  used  in  the  North 
Country;  and  welcome  every  brave  yeoman  who  shall 
try  a  shot  at  it  to  win  a  smile  from  the  bonny  lass  he 
loves  best." 

He  then  turned  to  leave  the  lists.  "Let  your  guards 
attend  me,"  he  said,  "if  you  please.  I  go  but  to  cut  a 
rod  from  the  next  willow-bush." 

Prince  John  made  a  signal  that  some  attendants 
should  follow  him  in  case  of  his  escape;  but  the  cry  of 
"Shame!  shame!"  which  burst  from  the  multitude, 
induced  him  to  alter  his  ungenerous  purpose. 

Locksley  returned   almost  instantly  with  a  willow 

262 


THE  ARCHERY  CONTEST 

wand  about  six  feet  in  length,  perfectly  straight,  and 
rather  thicker  than  a  man's  thumb.  He  began  to 
peel  this  with  great  composure,  observing,  at  the  same 
time,  that  to  ask  a  good  woodsman  to  shoot  at  a  target 
so  broad  as  had  hitherto  been  used  was  to  put  shame 
upon  his  skill.  For  his  own  part,  he  said,  and  in  the  land 
where  he  was  bred,  men  would  as  soon  take  for  their 
mark  King  Arthur's  round  table,  which  held  sixty 
knights  around  it.  "A  child  of  seven  years  old,"  he  said, 
"might  hit  yonder  target  with  a  headless  shaft;  but," 
added  he,  walking  deliberately  to  the  other  end  of  the 
lists,  and  sticking  the  willow  wand  upright  in  the  ground, 
"he  that  hits  that  rod  at  fivescore  yards,  I  call  him  an 
archer  fit  to  bear  both  bow  and  quiver  before  a  king, 
an  it  were  the  stout  King  Richard  himself." 

"My  grandsire,"  said  Hubert,  "drew  a  good  bow  at 
the  battle  of  Hastings,  and  never  shot  at  such  a  mark  in 
his  life,  and  neither  will  I.  If  this  yeoman  can  cleave 
that  rod,  I  give  him  the  bucklers;  or  rather,  I  yield  to 
the  devil  that  is  in  his  jerkin,  and  not  to  any  human 
skill;  a  man  can  but  do  his  best,  and  I  will  not  shoot 
where  I  am  sure  to  miss.  I  might  as  well  shoot  at  the 
edge  of  our  parson's  whittle,  or  at  a  sunbeam,  as  at  a 
twinkling  white  streak  which  I  can  hardly  see." 

"Cowardly  dog  !"  said  Prince  John.  "Sirrah  Locks- 
ley,  do  thou  shoot ;  but  if  thou  hittest  such  a  mark  I  will 
say  thou  art  the  first  man  ever  did  so.  Howe'er  it  be, 
thou  shalt  not  crow  over  us  with  a  mere  show  of  superior 
skill." 

"I  will  do  my  best,  as  Hubert  says,"  answered  Locks- 
ley;  "no  man  can  do  more." 

263 


MODERN  STORIES 

So  saying,  he  again  bent  his  bow,  but  on  the  pre- 
sent occasion  looked  with  attention  to  his  weapon,  and 
changed  the  string,  which  he  thought  was  no  longer 
truly  round,  having  been  a  little  frayed  by  the  two  for- 
mer shots.  He  then  took  his  aim  with  some  delibera* 
tion,  and  the  multitude  awaited  the  event  in  breathless 
silence.  The  archer  vindicated  their  opinion  of  his  skill : 
his  arrow  split  the  willow  rod  against  which  it  was  aimed. 
A  jubilee  of  acclamations  followed;  and  even  Prince 
John,  in  admiration  of  Locksley's  skill,  lost  for  an  in- 
stant his  dislike  to  his  person.  "These  twenty  nobles," 
he  said,  "which,  with  the  bugle,  thou  hast  fairly  won, 
are  thine  own ;  we  will  make  them  fifty,  if  thou  wilt  take 
livery  and  service  with  us  as  a  yeoman  of  our  body- 
guard, and  be  near  to  our  person.  For  never  did  so 
strong  a  hand  bend  a  bow,  or  so  true  an  eye  direct  a 
shaft." 

"Pardon  me,  noble  Prince,"  said  Locksley;  "but  I 
have  vowed  that  if  ever  I  take  service  it  should  be  with 
your  royal  brother,  King  Richard.  These  twenty  nobles 
I  leave  to  Hubert,  who  has  this  day  drawn  as  brave  a 
bow  as  his  grandsire  did  at  Hastings.  Had  his  modesty 
not  refused  the  trial,  he  would  have  hit  the  wand  as  well 
as  I." 

Hubert  shook  his  head  as  he  received  with  reluctance 
the  bounty  of  the  stranger;  and  Locksley,  anxious  to 
escape  farther  observation,  mixed  with  the  crowd,  and 
was  seen  no  more. 


A  RACE   FOR   LIFE 

By  James  Fenimore  Cooper 

ALOW  but  fearful  sound  arose  from  the  forest, 
and  was  immediately  succeeded  by  a  high,  shrill 
yell,  that  was  drawn  out,  until  it  equaled  the  longest 
and  most  plaintive  howl  of  the  wolf.  The  sudden  and 
terrible  interruption  caused  Duncan  to  start  from  his 
seat,  unconscious  of  everything  but  the  effect  produced 
by  so  frightful  a  cry.  At  the  same  moment,  the  warriors 
glided  in  a  body  from  the  lodge,  and  the  outer  air  was 
filled  with  loud  shouts,  that  nearly  drowned  those  aw- 
ful sounds,  which  were  still  ringing  beneath  the  arches 
of  the  woods.  Unable  to  command  himself  any  longer, 
the  youth  broke  from  the  place,  and  presently  stood  in 
the  centre  of  a  disorderly  throng,  that  included  nearly 
everything  having  life,  within  the  limits  of  the  encamp- 
ment. Men,  women,  and  children;  the  aged,  the  infirm, 
the  active,  and  the  strong,  were  alike  abroad;  some 
exclaiming  aloud,  others  clapping  their  hands  with  a 
joy  that  seemed  frantic,  and  all  expressing  their  savage 
pleasure  in  some  unexpected  event.  Though  astounded, 
at  first,  by  the  uproar,  Heyward  was  soon  enabled  to  find 
its  solution  by  the  scene  that  followed. 

There  yet  lingered  sufficient  light  in  the  heavens  to 
exhibit  those  bright  openings  among  the  treetops,  where 
different  paths  left  the  clearing  to  enter  the  depths  of 

265 


MODERN  STORIES 

the  wilderness.  Beneath  one  of  them,  a  line  of  warriors 
issued  from  the  woods,  and  advanced  slowly  towards 
the  dwellings.  One  in  front  bore  a  short  pole,  on  which, 
as  it  afterwards  appeared,  were  suspended  several  hu- 
man scalps.  The  startling  sounds  that  Duncan  had 
heard  were  what  the  whites  have  not  inappropriately 
called  the  "death-halloo;"  and  each  repetition  of  the 
cry  was  intended  to  announce  to  the  tribe  the  fate  of  an 
enemy.  Thus  far  the  knowledge  of  Heyward  assisted 
him  in  the  explanation;  and  as  he  now  knew  that  the 
interruption  was  caused  by  the  unlooked-for  return 
of  a  successful  war-party,  every  disagreeable  sensation 
was  quieted  in  inward  congratulation,  for  the  oppor- 
tune relief  and  insignificance  it  conferred  on  himself. 

When  at  the  distance  of  a  few  hundred  feet  from  the 
lodges,  the  newly  arrived  warriors  halted.  Their  plain- 
tive and  terrific  cry,  which  was  intended  to  represent 
equally  the  wailings  of  the  dead  and  the  triumph  of  the 
victors,  had  entirely  ceased.  One  of  their  number  now 
called  aloud,  in  words  that  were  far  from  appalling, 
though  not  more  intelligible  to  those  for  whose  ears 
they  were  intended,  than  their  expressive  yells.  It  would 
be  difficult  to  convey  a  suitable  idea  of  the  savage  ecstasy 
with  which  the  news  thus  imparted  was  received.  The 
whole  encampment,  in  a  moment,  became  a  scene  of 
the  most  violent  bustle  and  commotion.  The  warriors 
drew  their  knives,  and  flourishing  them,  they  arranged 
themselves  in  two  lines,  forming  a  lane  that  extended 
from  the  war-party  to  the  lodges.  The  squaws  seized 
clubs,  axes,  or  whatever  weapon  of  offense  first  offered 
itself  to  their  hands,  and  rushed  eagerly  to  act  their 

266 


A  RACE  FOR  LIFE 

part  in  the  cruel  game  that  was  at  hand .  Even  the  chil- 
dren would  not  be  excluded ;  but  boys,  little  able  to  wield 
the  instruments,  tore  the  tomahawks  from  the  belts  of 
their  fathers,  and  stole  into  the  ranks,  apt  imitators 
of  the  savage  traits  exhibited  by  their  parents. 

Large  piles  of  brush  lay  scattered  about  the  clearing, 
and  a  wary  and  aged  squaw  was  occupied  in  firing  as 
many  as  might  serve  to  light  the  coming  exhibition.  As 
the  flame  arose,  its  power  exceeded  that  of  the  parting 
day,  and  assisted  to  render  objects  at  the  same  time 
more  distinct  and  more  hideous.  The  whole  scene 
formed  a  striking  picture,  whose  frame  was  composed 
of  the  dark  and  tall  border  of  pines.  The  warriors  just 
arrived  were  the  most  distant  figures.  A  little  in  advance 
stood  two  men,  who  were  apparently  selected  from 
the  rest,  as  the  principal  actors  in  what  was  to  follow. 
The  light  was  not  strong  enough  to  render  their  features 
distinct,  though  it  was  quite  evident  that  they  were 
governed  by  very  different  emotions.  While  one  stood 
erect  and  firm,  prepared  to  meet  his  fate  like  a  hero,  the 
other  bowed  his  head,  as  if  palsied  by  terror  or  stricken 
with  shame.  The  high-spirited  Duncan  felt  a  powerful 
impulse  of  admiration  and  pity  towards  the  former, 
though  no  opportunity  could  offer  to  exhibit  his  gen- 
erous emotions.  He  watched  his  slightest  movement, 
however,  with  eager  eyes ;  and  as  he  traced  the  fine  out- 
line of  his  admirably  proportioned  and  active  frame, 
he  endeavored  to  persuade  himself  that  if  the  powers 
of  man,  seconded  by  such  noble  resolution,  could  bear 
one  harmless  through  so  severe  a  trial,  the  youthful 
captive  before  him  might  hope  for  success  in  the  hazard- 

267 


MODERN  STORIES 

ous  race  he  was  about  to  run.  Insensibly  the  young 
man  drew  nigher  to  the  swarthy  lines  of  the  Hurons, 
and  scarcely  breathed,  so  intense  became  his  interest 
in  the  spectacle.  Just  then  the  signal  yell  was  given, 
and  the  momentary  quiet  which  had  preceded  it  was 
broken  by  a  burst  of  cries  that  far  exceeded  any  before 
heard.  The  most  abject  of  the  two  victims  continued 
motionless ;  but  the  other  bounded  from  the  place  at  the 
cry,  with  the  activity  and  swiftness  of  a  deer.  Instead 
of  rushing  through  the  hostile  lines,  as  had  been  ex- 
pected, he  just  entered  the  dangerous  defile,  and  before 
time  was  given  for  a  single  blow,  turned  short,  and  leap- 
ing the  heads  of  a  row  of  children,  he  gained  at  once 
the  exterior  and  safer  side  of  the  formidable  array. 
The  artifice  was  answered  by  a  hundred  voices  raised 
in  imprecations ;  and  the  whole  of  the  excited  multitude 
broke  from  their  order,  and  spread  themselves  about 
the  place  in  wild  confusion. 

A  dozen  blazing  piles  now  shed  their  lurid  bright- 
ness on  the  place,  which  resembled  some  unhallowed 
and  supernatural  arena,  in  which  malicious  demons  had 
assembled  to  act  their  bloody  and  lawless  rites.  The 
forms  in  the  background  looked  like  unearthly  beings 
gliding  before  the  eye,  and  cleaving  the  air  with  fran- 
tic and  unmeaning  gestures ;  while  the  savage  passions 
of  such  as  passed  the  flames  were  rendered  fearfully 
distinct  by  the  gleams  that  shot  athwart  their  inflamed 
visages. 

It  will  easily  be  understood,  that  amid  such  a  con- 
course of  vindictive  enemies,  no  breathing  time  was 
allowed  the  fugitive.   There  was  a  single  moment  when 

268 


A  RACE  FOR  LIFE 

it  seemed  as  if  he  would  have  reached  the  forest,  but 
the  whole  body  of  his  captors  threw  themselves  before 
him,  and  drove  him  back  into  the  centre  of  his  relentless 
persecutors.  Turning  like  a  headed  deer,  he  shot,  with 
the  swiftness  of  an  arrow,  through  a  pillar  of  forked 
flame,  and  passing  the  whole  multitude  harmless,  he  ap- 
peared on  the  opposite  side  of  the  clearing.  Here,  too, 
he  was  met  and  turned  by  a  few  of  the  older  and  more 
subtle  of  the  Hurons.  Once  more  he  tried  the  throng, 
as  if  seeking  safety  in  its  blindness,  and  then  several 
moments  succeeded,  during  which  Duncan  believed  the 
active  and  courageous  young  stranger  was  lost. 

Nothing  could  be  distinguished  but  a  dark  mass  of 
human  forms  tossed  and  involved  in  inextricable  con- 
fusion. Arms,  gleaming  knives,  and  formidable  clubs 
appeared  above  them,  but  the  blows  were  evidently 
given  at  random.  The  awful  effect  was  heightened  by 
the  piercing  shrieks  of  the  women  and  the  fierce  yells  of 
the  warriors.  Now  and  then  Duncan  caught  a  glimpse 
of  a  light  form  cleaving  the  air  in  some  desperate  bound, 
and  he  rather  hoped  than  believed  that  the  captive 
yet  retained  the  command  of  his  astonishing  powers  of 
activity.  Suddenly  the  multitude  rolled  backward,  and 
approached  the  spot  where  he  himself  stood.  The  heavy 
body  in  the  rear  pressed  upon  the  women  and  children 
in  front,  and  bore  them  to  the  earth.  The  stranger 
reappeared  in  the  confusion.  Human  power  could  not, 
however,  much  longer  endure  so  severe  a  trial.  Of  this 
the  captive  seemed  conscious.  Profiting  by  the  momen- 
tary opening,  he  darted  from  among  the  warriors,  and 
made  a  desperate,  and  what  seemed  to  Duncan  a  final 

269 


MODERN  STORIES 

effort  to  gain  the  wood.  As  if  aware  that  no  danger  was 
to  be  apprehended  from  the  young  soldier,  the  fugitive 
nearly  brushed  his  person  in  his  flight.  A  tall  and  power- 
ful Huron,  who  had  husbanded  his  forces,  pressed  close 
upon  his  heels,  and  with  an  uplifted  arm  menaced  a 
fatal  blow.  Duncan  thrust  forth  a  foot,  and  the  shock 
precipitated  the  eager  savage  headlong,  many  feet  in 
advance  of  his  intended  victim.  Thought  itself  is  not 
quicker  than  was  the  motion  with  which  the  latter 
profited  by  the  advantage;  he  turned,  gleamed  like  a 
meteor  again  before  the  eyes  of  Duncan,  and  at  the 
next  moment,  when  the  latter  recovered  his  recollec- 
tion, and  gazed  around  in  quest  of  the  captive,  he  saw 
him  quietly  leaning  against  a  small  painted  post,  which 
stood  before  the  door  of  the  principal  lodge. 

Apprehensive  that  the  part  he  had  taken  in  the 
escape  might  prove  fatal  to  himself,  Duncan  left  the 
place  without  delay.  He  followed  the  crowd,  which  drew 
nigh  the  lodges,  gloomy  and  sullen,  like  any  other  multi- 
tude that  had  been  disappointed  in  an  execution.  Curi- 
osity, or  perhaps  a  better  feeling,  induced  him  to  ap- 
proach the  stranger.  He  found  him  standing  with  one 
arm  cast  about  the  protecting  post,  and  breathing  thick 
and  hard,  after  his  exertions,  but  disdaining  to  permit  a 
single  sign  of  suffering  to  escape.  His  person  was  now 
protected  by  immemorial  and  sacred  usage,  until  the 
tribe  in  council  had  deliberated  and  determined  on  his 
fate.  It  was  not  difficult,  however,  to  foretell  the  result, 
if  any  presage  could  be  drawn  from  the  feelings  of  those 
who  crowded  the  place. 


THE   GREAT   STONE   FACE 

By  Nathaniel  Hawthorne 

ONE  afternoon,  when  the  sun  was  going  down,  a 
mother  and  her  little  boy  sat  at  the  door  of  their 
cottage,  talking  about  the  Great  Stone  Face.  They  had 
but  to  lift  their  eyes,  and  there  it  was  plainly  to  be  seen, 
though  miles  away,  with  the  sunshine  brightening  all 
its  features. 

And  what  was  the  Great  Stone  Face  ? 

Embosomed  amongst  a  family  of  lofty  mountains, 
there  was  a  valley  so  spacious  that  it  contained  many 
thousand  inhabitants.  Some  of  these  good  people  dwelt 
in  log  huts,  with  the  black  forest  all  around  them,  on 
the  steep  and  difficult  hillsides.  Others  had  their  homes 
in  comfortable  farmhouses,  and  cultivated  the  rich  soil 
on  the  gentle  slopes  or  level  surfaces  of  the  valley. 
Others,  again,  were  congregated  into  populous  villages, 
where  some  wild,  highland  rivulet,  tumbling  down  from 
its  birthplace  in  the  upper  mountain  region,  had  been 
caught  and  tamed  by  human  cunning,  and  compelled 
to  turn  the  machinery  of  cotton  factories.  The  inhab- 
itants of  this  valley,  in  short,  were  numerous,  and  of 
many  modes  of  life.  But  all  of  them,  grown  people  and 
children,  had  a  kind  of  familiarity  with  the  Great  Stone 
Face,  although  some  possessed  the  gift  of  distinguishing 

271 


MODERN  STORIES 

this  grand  natural  phenomenon  more  perfectly  than 
many  of  their  neighbors. 

The  Great  Stone  Face,  then,  was  a  work  of  Nature 
in  her  mood  of  majestic  playfulness,  formed  on  the  per- 
pendicular side  of  a  mountain  by  some  immense  rocks, 
which  had  been  thrown  together  in  such  a  position  as, 
when  viewed  at  a  proper  distance,  precisely  to  resemble 
the  features  of  the  human  countenance.  It  seemed  as 
if  an  enormous  giant,  or  a  Titan,  had  sculptured  his 
own  likeness  on  the  precipice.  There  was  the  broad 
arch  of  the  forehead,  a  hundred  feet  in  height ;  the  nose, 
,with  its  long  bridge;  and  the  vast  lips,  which,  if  they 
could  have  spoken,  would  have  rolled  their  thunder  ac- 
cents from  one  end  of  the  valley  to  the  other.  True  it 
is,  that  if  the  spectator  approached  too  near,  he  lost  the 
outline  of  the  gigantic  visage,  and  could  discern  only  a 
heap  of  ponderous  and  gigantic  rocks,  piled  in  chaotic 
ruin  one  upon  another.  Retracing  his  steps,  however, 
the  wondrous  features  would  again  be  seen;  and  the 
farther  he  withdrew  from  them,  the  more  like  a  human 
face,  with  all  its  original  divinity  intact,  did  they  appear; 
until,  as  it  grew  dim  in  the  distance,  with  the  clouds 
and  glorified  vapor  of  the  mountains  clustering  about 
it,  the  Great  Stone  Face  seemed  positively  to  be  alive. 

It  was  a  happy  lot  for  children  to  grow  up  to  man- 
hood or  womanhood  with  the  Great  Stone  Face  before 
their  eyes,  for  all  the  features  were  noble,  and  the  ex- 
pression was  at  once  grand  and  sweet,  as  if  it  were  the 
glow  of  a  vast,  warm  heart,  that  embraced  all  man- 
kind in  its  affections,  and  had  room  for  more.  It  was 
an  education  only  to  look  at  it.   According  to  the  belief 

272 


83*® 


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THE  GREAT  STONE  FACE,  THEN,  WAS  A  WORK  OF  NATURE  IN  HER 
MOOD  OF  MAJESTIC  PLAYFULNESS,  FORMED  ON  THE  PERPENDICU- 
LAR SIDE  OF  A  MOUNTAIN  BY  SOME  IMMENSE  ROCKS,  WHICH  HAD 
BEEN  THROWN  TOGETHER  IN  SUCH  A  POSITION  AS,  WHEN  VIEWED 
AT  A  PROPER  DISTANCE,  PRECISELY  TO  RESEMBLE  THE  FEATURES 
OF  THE  HUMAN  COUNTENANCE.  IT  SEEMED  AS  IF  AN  ENORMOUS 
GIANT,     OR    A    TITAN,    HAD     SCULPTURED     HIS    OWN 

*L  M  2M 


4* 

LIKENESS  JA 


i&Es&l 


32B 


THE  GREAT  STONE  FACE 

of  many  people,  the  valley  owed  much  of  its  fertility  to 
this  benign  aspect  that  was  continually  beaming  over 
it,  illuminating  the  clouds,  and  infusing  its  tenderness 
into  the  sunshine. 

As  we  began  with  saying,  a  mother  and  her  little  boy 
sat  at  their  cottage  door,  gazing  at  the  Great  Stone  Face, 
and  talking  about  it.    The  child's  name  was  Ernest. 

"Mother,"  said  he,  while  the  Titanic  visage  smiled 
on  him,  "  I  wish  that  it  could  speak,  for  it  looks  so  very 
kindly  that  its  voice  must  needs  be  pleasant.  If  I  were 
to  see  a  man  with  such  a  face,  I  should  love  him  dearly." 

"If  an  old  prophecy  should  come  to  pass,"  answered 
his  mother,  "we  may  see  a  man,  some  time  or  other, 
with  exactly  such  a  face  as  that." 

"What  prophecy  do  you  mean,  dear  mother?" 
eagerly  inquired  Ernest.    "Pray  tell  me  all  about  it!" 

So  his  mother  told  him  a  story  that  her  own  mother 
had  told  to  her,  when  she  herself  was  younger  than 
little  Ernest;  a  story,  not  of  things  that  were  past,  but 
of  what  was  yet  to  come;  a  story,  nevertheless,  so  very 
old,  that  even  the  Indians,  who  formerly  inhabited  this 
valley,  had  heard  it  from  their  forefathers,  to  whom, 
as  they  affirmed,  it  had  been  murmured  by  the  moun- 
tain streams,  and  whispered  by  the  wind  among  the 
treetops.  The  purport  was,  that,  at  some  future  day, 
a  child  should  be  born  hereabouts,  who  was  destined 
to  become  the  greatest  and  noblest  personage  of  his 
time,  and  whose  countenance,  in  manhood,  should  bear 
an  exact  resemblance  to  the  Great  Stone  Face.  Not  a 
few  old-fashioned  people,  and  young  ones  likewise,  in 
the  ardor  of  their  hopes,  still  cherished  an  enduring 

273 


MODERN  STORIES 

faith  in  this  old  prophecy.  But  others,  who  had  seen 
more  of  the  world,  had  watched  and  waited  till  they 
were  weary,  and  had  beheld  no  man  with  such  a  face, 
nor  any  man  that  proved  to  be  much  greater  or  nobler 
than  his  neighbors,  concluded  it  to  be  nothing  but  an 
idle  tale.  At  all  events,  the  great  man  of  the  prophecy 
had  not  yet  appeared. 

"O  mother,  dear  mother!"  cried  Ernest,  clapping 
his  hands  above  his  head,  "I  do  hope  that  I  shall  live 
to  see  him!" 

His  mother  was  an  affectionate  and  thoughtful  wo- 
man, and  felt  that  it  was  wisest  not  to  discourage  the 
generous  hopes  of  her  little  boy.  So  she  only  said  to 
him,  "Perhaps  you  may." 

And  Ernest  never  forgot  the  story  that  his  mother  told 
him.  It  was  always  in  his  mind,  whenever  he  looked 
upon  the  Great  Stone  Face.  He  spent  his  childhood  in 
the  log  cottage  where  he  was  born,  and  was  dutiful  to 
his  mother,  and  helpful  to  her  in  many  things,  assisting 
her  much  with  his  little  hands,  and  more  with  his  loving 
heart.  In  this  manner,  from  a  happy  yet  often  pensive 
child,  he  grew  up  to  be  a  mild,  quiet,  unobtrusive  boy, 
and  sun-browned  with  labor  in  the  fields,  but  with  more 
intelligence  brightening  his  aspect  than  is  seen  in  many 
lads  who  have  been  taught  at  famous  schools.  Yet  Ernest 
had  had  no  teacher,  save  only  that  the  Great  Stone 
Face  became  one  to  him.  When  the  toil  of  the  day  was 
over,  he  would  gaze  at  it  for  hours,  until  he  began  to 
imagine  that  those  vast  features  recognized  him,  and 
gave  him  a  smile  of  kindness  and  encouragement,  re- 
sponsive to  his  own  look  of  veneration.    We  must  not 

274 


THE  GREAT  STONE  FACE 

take  upon  us  to  affirm  that  this  was  a  mistake,  although 
the  Face  may  have  looked  no  more  kindly  at  Ernest 
than  at  all  the  world  besides.  But  the  secret  was  that 
the  boy's  tender  and  confiding  simplicity  discerned 
what  other  people  could  not  see;  and  thus  the  love, 
which  was  meant  for  all,  became  his  peculiar  portion. 
About  this  time  there  went  a  rumor  throughout  the 
valley,  that  the  great  man,  foretold  from  ages  long  ago, 
who  was  to  bear  a  resemblance  to  the  Great  Stone  Face, 
had  appeared  at  last.  It  seems  that,  many  years  before, 
a  young  man  had  migrated  from  the  valley  and  settled 
at  a  distant  seaport,  where,  after  getting  together  a 
little  money,  he  had  set  up  as  a  shopkeeper.  His  name 
—  but  I  could  never  learn  whether  it  was  his  real  one, 
or  a  nickname  that  had  grown  out  of  his  habits  and 
success  in  life  —  was  Gathergold.  Being  shrewd  and 
active,  and  endowed  by  Providence  with  that  inscruta- 
ble faculty  which  develops  itself  in  what  the  world  calls 
luck,  he  became  an  exceedingly  rich  merchant,  and 
owner  of  a  whole  fleet  of  bulky-bottomed  ships.  All  the 
countries  of  the  globe  appeared  to  join  hands  for  the 
mere  purpose  of  adding  heap  after  heap  to  the  moun- 
tainous accumulation  of  this  one  man's  wealth.  The 
cold  regions  of  the  north,  almost  within  the  gloom  and 
shadow  of  the  Arctic  Circle,  sent  him  their  tribute  in 
the  shape  of  furs;  hot  Africa  sifted  for  him  the  golden 
sands  of  her  rivers,  and  gathered  up  the  ivory  tusks  of 
her  great  elephants  out  of  the  forests;  the  East  came 
bringing  him  the  rich  shawls,  and  spices,  and  teas, 
and  the  effulgence  of  diamonds,  and  the  gleaming  pu- 
rity of  large  pearls.     The  ocean,  not  to  be  behindhand 

275 


MODERN  STORIES 

with  the  earth,  yielded  up  her  mighty  whales,  that  Mr. 
Gathergold  might  sell  their  oil,  and  make  a  profit  on  it. 
Be  the  original  commodity  what  it  might,  it  was  gold 
within  his  grasp.  It  might  be  said  of  him,  as  of  Midas 
in  the  fable,  that  whatever  he  touched  with  his  fin- 
ger immediately  glistened,  and  grew  yellow,  and  was 
changed  at  once  into  sterling  metal,  or,  which  suited 
him  still  better,  into  piles  of  coin.  And,  when  Mr. 
Gathergold  had  become  so  very  rich  that  it  would  have 
taken  him  a  hundred  years  only  to  count  his  wealth,  he 
bethought  himself  of  his  native  valley,  and  resolved  to 
go  back  thither,  and  end  his  days  where  he  was  born. 
With  this  purpose  in  view,  he  sent  a  skillful  architect  to 
build  him  such  a  palace  as  should  be  fit  for  a  man  of 
his  vast  wealth  to  live  in. 

As  I  have  said  above,  it  had  already  been  rumored 
in  the  valley  that  Mr.  Gathergold  had  turned  out  to 
be  the  prophetic  personage  so  long  and  vainly  looked 
for,  and  that  his  visage  was  the  perfect  and  undeniable 
similitude  of  the  Great  Stone  Face.  People  were  the 
more  ready  to  believe  that  this  must  needs  be  the  fact, 
when  they  beheld  the  splendid  edifice  that  rose,  as  if 
by  enchantment,  on  the  site  of  his  father's  old  weather- 
beaten  farmhouse.  The  exterior  was  of  marble,  so 
dazzlingly  white  that  it  seemed  as  though  the  whole 
structure  might  melt  away  in  the  sunshine,  like  those 
humbler  ones  which  Mr.  Gathergold,  in  his  young  play- 
days,  before  his  fingers  were  gifted  with  the  touch  of 
transmutation,  had  been  accustomed  to  build  of  snow. 
It  had  a  richly  ornamented  portico,  supported  by  tall 
pillars,  beneath  which  was  a  lofty  door,  studded  with 

276 


THE  GREAT  STONE  FACE 

silver  knobs,  and  made  of  a  kind  of  variegated  wood 
that  had  been  brought  from  beyond  the  sea.  The  win- 
dows, from  the  floor  to  the  ceiling  of  each  stately  apart- 
ment, were  composed,  respectively,  of  but  one  enor- 
mous pane  of  glass,  so  transparently  pure  that  it  was 
said  to  be  a  finer  medium  than  even  the  vacant  atmos- 
phere. Hardly  anybody  had  been  permitted  to  see  the 
interior  of  this  palace;  but  it  was  reported,  and  with 
good  semblance  of  truth,  to  be  far  more  gorgeous  than 
the  outside,  insomuch  that  whatever  was  iron  or  brass 
in  other  houses  was  silver  or  gold  in  this;  and  Mr. 
Gathergold's  bedchamber,  especially,  made  such  a  glit- 
tering appearance  that  no  ordinary  man  would  have  been 
able  to  close  his  eyes  there.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  Mr. 
Gathergold  was  now  so  inured  to  wealth,  that  perhaps 
he  could  not  have  closed  his  eyes  unless  where  the  gleam 
of  it  was  certain  to  find  its  way  beneath  his  eyelids. 

In  due  time,  the  mansion  was  finished;  next  came 
the  upholsterers,  with  magnificent  furniture;  then,  a 
whole  troop  of  black  and  white  servants,  the  harbingers 
of  Mr.  Gathergold,  who,  in  his  own  majestic  person, 
was  expected  to  arrive  at  sunset.  Our  friend  Ernest, 
meanwhile,  had  been  deeply  stirred  by  the  idea  that 
the  great  man,  the  noble  man,  the  man  of  prophecy, 
after  so  many  ages  of  delay,  was  at  length  to  be  made 
manifest  to  his  native  valley.  He  knew,  boy  as  he  was, 
that  there  were  a  thousand  ways  in  which  Mr.  Gather- 
gold, with  his  vast  wealth,  might  transform  himself  into 
an  angel  of  beneficence,  and  assume  a  control  over 
human  affairs  as  wide  and  benignant  as  the  smile  of 
the  Great  Stone  Face.    Full  of  faith  and  hope,  Ernest 

277 


MODERN   STORIES 

doubted  not  that  what  the  people  said  was  true,  and 
that  now  he  was  to  behold  the  living  likeness  of  those 
wondrous  features  on  the  mountain-side.  While  the 
boy  was  still  gazing  up  the  valley,  and  fancying,  as  he 
always  did,  that  the  Great  Stone  Face  returned  his 
gaze  and  looked  kindly  at  him,  the  rumbling  of  wheels 
was  heard,  approaching  swiftly  along  the  winding  road. 

"  Here  he  comes ! "  cried  a  group  of  people  who  were 
assembled  to  witness  the  arrival.  "Here  comes  the  great 
Mr.  Gathergold!" 

A  carriage,  drawn  by  four  horses,  dashed  round  the 
turn  of  the  road.  Within  it,  thrust  partly  out  of  the 
window,  appeared  the  physiognomy  of  the  old  man, 
with  a  skin  as  yellow  as  if  his  own  Midas-hand  had 
transmuted  it.  He  had  a  low  forehead,  small,  sharp 
eyes,  puckered  about  with  innumerable  wrinkles,  and 
very  thin  lips,  which  he  made  still  thinner  by  pressing 
them  forcibly  together. 

"  The  very  image  of  the  Great  Stone  Face ! "  shouted 
the  people.  "Sure  enough,  the  old  prophecy  is  true; 
and  here  we  have  the  great  man  come  at  last!" 

And,  what  greatly  perplexed  Ernest,  they  seemed 
actually  to  believe  that  here  was  the  likeness  which 
they  spoke  of.  By  the  roadside  there  chanced  to  be 
an  old  beggar-woman  and  two  little  beggar-children, 
stragglers  from  some  far-off  region,  who,  as  the  carriage 
rolled  onward,  held  out  their  hands  and  lifted  up  their 
doleful  voices,  most  piteously  beseeching  charity.  A  yel- 
low claw  —  the  very  same  that  had  clawed  together  so 
much  wealth  —  poked  itself  out  of  the  coach-window, 
and  dropped  some  copper  coins  upon  the  ground;  so 

278 


THE  GREAT  STONE  FACE 

that,  though  the  great  man's  name  seems  to  have  been 
Gathergold,  he  might  just  as  suitably  have  been  nick- 
named Scattercopper.  Still,  nevertheless,  with  an  earnest 
shout,  and  evidently  with  as  much  good  faith  as  ever, 
the  people  bellowed,  — 

"He  is  the  very  image  of  the  Great  Stone  Face!" 

But  Ernest  turned  sadly  from  the  wrinkled  shrewd- 
ness of  that  sordid  visage,  and  gazed  up  the  valley, 
where,  amid  a  gathering  mist,  gilded  by  the  last  sun- 
beams, he  could  still  distinguish  those  glorious  features 
which  had  impressed  themselves  into  his  soul.  Their 
aspect  cheered  him.  What  did  the  benign  lips  seem 
to  say? 

"He  will  come!  Fear  not,  Ernest;  the  man  will 
come ! " 

The  years  went  on,  and  Ernest  ceased  to  be  a  boy. 
He  had  grown  to  be  a  young  man  now.  He  attracted 
little  notice  from  the  other  inhabitants  of  the  valley; 
for  they  saw  nothing  remarkable  in  his  way  of  life, 
save  that,  when  the  labor  of  the  day  was  over,  he  still 
loved  to  go  apart  and  gaze  and  meditate  upon  the  Great 
Stone  Face.  According  to  their  idea  of  the  matter,  it 
was  a  folly,  indeed,  but  pardonable,  inasmuch  as  Ernest 
was  industrious,  kind,  and  neighborly,  and  neglected 
no  duty  for  the  sake  of  indulging  this  idle  habit.  They 
knew  not  that  the  Great  Stone  Face  had  become  a 
teacher  to  him,  and  that  the  sentiment  which  was  ex- 
pressed in  it  would  enlarge  the  young  man's  heart,  and 
fill  it  with  wider  and  deeper  sympathies  than  other 
hearts.  They  knew  not  that  thence  would  come  a  bet- 
ter wisdom  than  could  be  learned  from  books,  and  a 

279 


MODERN  STORIES 

better  life  than  could  be  moulded  on  the  defaced  ex- 
ample of  other  human  lives.  Neither  did  Ernest  know 
that  the  thoughts  and  affections  which  came  to  him  so 
naturally,  in  the  fields  and  at  the  fireside,  and  wherever 
he  communed  with  himself,  were  of  a  higher  tone  than 
those  which  all  men  shared  with  him.  A  simple  soul, 
—  simple  as  when  his  mother  first  taught  him  the  old 
prophecy,  —  he  beheld  the  marvelous  features  beaming 
adown  the  valley,  and  still  wondered  that  their  human 
counterpart  was  so  long  in  making  his  appearance. 

By  this  time  poor  Mr.  Gathergold  was  dead  and 
buried;  and  the  oddest  part  of  the  matter  was,  that 
his  wealth,  which  was  the  body  and  spirit  of  his  exist- 
ence, had  disappeared  before  his  death,  leaving  nothing 
of  him  but  a  living  skeleton,  covered  over  with  a 
wrinkled,  yellow  skin.  Since  the  melting  away  of  his 
gold,  it  had  been  very  generally  conceded  that  there 
was  no  such  striking  resemblance,  after  all,  betwixt 
the  ignoble  features  of  the  ruined  merchant  and  that 
majestic  face  upon  the  mountain-side.  So  the  people 
ceased  to  honor  him  during  his  lifetime,  and  quietly 
consigned  him  to  forgetfulness  after  his  decease.  Once 
in  a  while,  it  is  true,  his  memory  was  brought  up  in  con- 
nection with  the  magnificent  palace  which  he  had  built, 
and  which  had  long  ago  been  turned  into  a  hotel  for 
the  accommodation  of  strangers,  multitudes  of  whom 
came,  every  summer,  to  visit  that  famous  natural  curi- 
osity, the  Great  Stone  Face.  Thus,  Mr.  Gathergold 
being  discredited  and  thrown  into  the  shade,  the  man 
of  prophecy  was  yet  to  come. 

It  so  happened  that  a  native-born  son  of  the  valley, 


THE  GREAT  STONE  FACE 

many  years  before,  had  enlisted  as  a  soldier,  and,  after 
a  great  deal  of  hard  fighting,  had  now  become  an 
illustrious  commander.  Whatever  he  may  be  called  in 
history,  he  was  known  in  camps  and  on  the  battlefield 
under  the  nickname  of  Old  Blood-and-Thunder.  This 
war-worn  veteran,  being  now  infirm  with  age  and 
wounds,  and  weary  of  the  turmoil  of  a  military  life, 
and  of  the  roll  of  the  drum  and  the  clangor  of  the 
trumpet,  that  had  so  long  been  ringing  in  his  ears,  had 
lately  signified  a  purpose  of  returning  to  his  native  val- 
ley, hoping  to  find  repose  where  he  remembered  to  have 
left  it.  The  inhabitants,  his  old  neighbors  and  their 
grown-up  children,  were  resolved  to  welcome  the  re- 
nowned warrior  with  a  salute  of  cannon  and  a  pub- 
lic dinner;  and  all  the  more  enthusiastically,  it  being 
affirmed  that  now,  at  last,  the  likeness  of  the  Great 
Stone  Face  had  actually  appeared.  An  aide-de-camp 
of  Old  Blood-and-Thunder,  traveling  through  the 
valley,  was  said  to  have  been  struck  with  the  resem- 
blance. Moreover  the  schoolmates  and  early  acquaint- 
ances of  the  general  were  ready  to  testify,  on  oath,  that, 
to  the  best  of  their  recollection,  the  aforesaid  general 
had  been  exceedingly  like  the  majestic  image,  even 
when  a  boy,  only  that  the  idea  had  never  occurred  to 
them  at  that  period.  Great,  therefore,  was  the  excite- 
ment throughout  the  valley;  and  many  people,  who 
had  never  once  thought  of  glancing  at  the  Great  Stone 
Face  for  years  before,  now  spent  their  time  in  gazing 
at  it,  for  the  sake  of  knowing,  exactly  how  General 
Blood-and-Thunder  looked. 

On  the  day  of  the  great  festival,  Ernest,  with  all  the 

281 


MODERN  STORIES 

other  people  of  the  valley,  left  their  work,  and  proceeded 
to  the  spot  where  the  sylvan  banquet  was  prepared.  As 
he  approached,  the  loud  voice  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Battle- 
blast  was  heard,  beseeching  a  blessing  on  the  good  things 
set  before  them,  and  on  the  distinguished  friend  of  peace 
in  whose  honor  they  were  assembled.  The  tables  were 
arranged  in  a  cleared  space  of  the  woods,  shut  in  by  the 
surrounding  trees,  except  where  a  vista  opened  east- 
ward, and  afforded  a  distant  view  of  the  Great  Stone 
Face.  Over  the  general's  chair,  which  was  a  relic  from 
the  home  of  Washington,  there  was  an  arch  of  verdant 
boughs,  with  the  laurel  profusely  intermixed,  and  sur- 
mounted by  his  country's  banner,  beneath  which  he  had 
won  his  victories.  Our  friend  Ernest  raised  himself  on 
his  tiptoes,  in  hopes  to  get  a  glimpse  of  the  celebrated 
guest;  but  there  was  a  mighty  crowd  about  the  tables 
anxious  to  hear  the  toasts  and  speeches,  and  to  catch 
any  word  that  might  fall  from  the  general  in  reply;  and 
a  volunteer  company,  doing  duty  as  a  guard,  pricked 
ruthlessly  with  their  bayonets  at  any  particularly  quiet 
person  among  the  throng.  So  Ernest,  being  of  an  unob- 
trusive character,  was  thrust  quite  into  the  background, 
where  he  could  see  no  more  of  Old  Blood-and-Thun- 
der's  physiognomy  than  if  it  had  been  still  blazing  on 
the  battlefield.  To  console  himself,  he  turned  towards 
the  Great  Stone  Face,  which,  like  a  faithful  and  long- 
remembered  friend,  looked  back  and  smiled  upon  him 
through  the  vista  of  the  forest.  Meantime,  however,  he 
could  overhear  the  remarks  of  various  individuals,  who 
were  comparing  the  features  of  the  hero  with  the  face 
on  the  distant  mountain-side. 

282 


THE  GREAT  STONE  FACE 

"  'T  is  the  same  face,  to  a  hair ! "  cried  one  man,  cut- 
ting a  caper  for  joy. 

"  Wonderfully  like,  that 's  a  fact ! "  responded  an- 
other. 

"Like!  why,  I  call  it  Old  Blood-and-Thunder  him- 
self, in  a  monstrous  looking-glass!"  cried  a  third.  "And 
why  not  ?  He 's  the  greatest  man  of  this  or  any  other 
age,  beyond  a  doubt." 

And  then  all  three  of  the  speakers  gave  a  great  shout, 
which  communicated  electricity  to  the  crowd,  and  called 
forth  a  roar  from  a  thousand  voices,  that  went  rever- 
berating for  miles  among  the  mountains,  until  you 
might  have  supposed  that  the  Great  Stone  Face  had 
poured  its  thunder-breath  into  the  cry.  All  these  com- 
ments, and  this  vast  enthusiasm,  served  the  more  to 
interest  our  friend;  nor  did  he  think  of  questioning 
that  now,  at  length,  the  mountain  visage  had  found  its 
human  counterpart.  It  is  true,  Ernest  had  imagined 
that  this  long-looked-for  personage  would  appear  in 
the  character  of  a  man  of  peace,  uttering  wisdom,  and 
doing  good,  and  making  people  happy.  But,  taking  an 
habitual  breadth  of  view,  with  all  his  simplicity,  he  con- 
tended that  Providence  should  choose  its  own  method 
of  blessing  mankind,  and  could  conceive  that  this  great 
end  might  be  effected  even  by  a  warrior  and  a  bloody 
sword,  should  inscrutable  wisdom  see  fit  to  order  mat- 
ters so. 

"The  general!  the  general!"  was  now  the  cry. 
"Hush!  silence!  Old  Blood-and-Thunder 's  going  to 
make  a  speech." 

Even  so;  for,  the  cloth  being  removed,  the  general's 

283 


MODERN  STORIES 

health  had  been  drunk,  amid  shouts  of  applause,  and 
he  now  stood  upon  his  feet  to  thank  the  company. 
Ernest  saw  him.  There  he  was,  over  the  shoulders  of 
the  crowd,  from  the  two  glittering  epaulets  and  embroi- 
dered collar  upward,  beneath  the  arch  of  green  boughs 
with  intertwined  laurel,  and  the  banner  drooping  as  if 
to  shade  his  brow !  And  there,  too,  visible  in  the  same 
glance,  through  the  vista  of  the  forest,  appeared  the 
Great  Stone  Face!  And  was  there,  indeed,  such  a 
resemblance  as  the  crowd  had  testified  ?  Alas,  Ernest 
could  not  recognize  it!  He  beheld  a  war-worn  and 
weather-beaten  countenance,  full  of  energy,  and  expres- 
sive of  an  iron  will;  but  the  gentle  wisdom,  the  deep, 
broad,  tender  sympathies,  were  altogether  wanting  in 
Old  Blood-and-Thunder's  visage;  and  even  if  the  Great 
Stone  Face  had  assumed  his  look  of  stern  command, 
the  milder  traits  would  still  have  tempered  it. 

"This  is  not  the  man  of  prophecy,"  sighed  Ernest  to 
himself,  as  he  made  his  way  out  of  the  throng.  "And 
must  the  world  wait  longer  yet?" 

The  mists  had  congregated  about  the  distant  moun- 
tain-side, and  there  were  seen  the  grand  and  awful 
features  of  the  Great  Stone  Face,  awful  but  benignant, 
as  if  a  mighty  angel  were  sitting  among  the  hills,  and 
enrobing  himself  in  a  cloud-vesture  of  gold  and  purple. 
As  he  looked,  Ernest  could  hardly  believe  but  that  a 
smile  beamed  over  the  whole  visage,  with  a  radiance 
still  brightening,  although  without  motion  of  the  lips. 
It  was  probably  the  effect  of  the  western  sunshine, 
melting  through  the  thinly  diffused  vapors  that  had 
swept  between  him  and  the  object  that  he  gazed  at 


THE  GREAT  STONE  FACE 

But  —  as  it  always  did  —  the  aspect  of  his  marvelous 
friend  made  Ernest  as  hopeful  as  if  he  had  never  hoped 
in  vain. 

"Fear  not,  Ernest,"  said  his  heart,  even  as  if  the 
Great  Face  were  whispering  him,  —  "fear  not,  Ernest; 
he  will  come." 

More  years  sped  swiftly  and  tranquilly  away.  Ernest 
still  dwelt  in  his  native  valley,  and  was  now  a  man  of 
middle  age.  By  imperceptible  degrees,  he  had  become 
known  among  the  people.  Now,  as  heretofore,  he  labored 
for  his  bread,  and  was  the  same  simple-hearted  man  that 
he  had  always  been.  But  he  had  thought  and  felt  so 
much,  he  had  given  so  many  of  the  best  hours  of  his 
life  to  unworldly  hopes  for  some  great  good  to  man- 
kind, that  it  seemed  as  though  he  had  been  talking 
with  the  angels,  and  had  imbibed  a  portion  of  their 
wisdom  unawares.  It  was  visible  in  the  calm  and  well- 
considered  beneficence  of  his  daily  life,  the  quiet  stream 
of  which  had  made  a  wide  green  margin  all  along  its 
course.  Not  a  day  passed  by,  that  the  world  was  not 
the  better  because  this  man,  humble  as  he  was,  had 
lived.  He  never  stepped  aside  from  his  own  path,  yet 
would  always  reach  a  blessing  to  his  neighbor.  Almost 
involuntarily,  too,  he  had  become  a  preacher.  The  pure 
and  high  simplicity  of  his  thought,  which,  as  one  of 
its  manifestations,  took  shape  in  the  good  deeds  that 
dropped  silently  from  his  hand,  flowed  also  forth  in 
speech.  He  uttered  truths  that  wrought  upon  and 
moulded  the  lives  of  those  who  heard  him.  His  audi- 
tors, it  may  be,  never  suspected  that  Ernest,  their  own 
neighbor  and  familiar  friend,  was  more  than  an  ordinary 

285 


MODERN  STORIES 

man;  least  of  all  did  Ernest  himself  suspect  it;  but, 
inevitably  as  the  murmur  of  a  rivulet,  came  thoughts 
out  of  his  mouth  that  no  other  human  lips  had  spoken. 
When  the  people's  minds  had  had  a  little  time  to 
cool,  they  were  ready  enough  to  acknowledge  their  mis- 
take in  imagining  a  similarity  between  General  Blood- 
and-Thunder's  truculent  physiognomy  and  the  benign 
visage  on  the  mountain-side.  But  now,  again,  there 
were  reports  and  many  paragraphs  in  the  newspapers, 
affirming  that  the  likeness  of  the  Great  Stone  Face  had 
appeared  upon  the  broad  shoulders  of  a  certain  eminent 
statesman.  He,  like  Mr.  Gathergold  and  Old  Blood- 
and-Thunder,  was  a  native  of  the  valley,  but  had  left 
it  in  his  early  days,  and  taken  up  the  trades  of  law  and 
politics.  Instead  of  the  rich  man's  wealth  and  the  war- 
rior's sword,  he  had  but  a  tongue,  and  it  was  mightier 
than  both  together.  So  wonderfully  eloquent  was  he, 
that  whatever  he  might  choose  to  say,  his  auditors  had 
no  choice  but  to  believe  him;  wrong  looked  like  right, 
and  right  like  wrong;  for  when  it  pleased  him,  he  could 
make  a  kind  of  illuminated  fog  with  his  mere  breath, 
and  obscure  the  natural  daylight  with  it.  His  tongue, 
indeed,  was  a  magic  instrument:  sometimes  it  rumbled 
like  the  thunder;  sometimes  it  warbled  like  the  sweet- 
est music.  It  was  the  blast  of  war,  —  the  song  of  peace; 
and  it  seemed  to  have  a  heart  in  it,  when  there  was  no 
such  matter.  In  good  truth,  he  was  a  wondrous  man; 
and  when  his  tongue  had  acquired  him  all  other  im- 
aginable success,  —  when  it  had  been  heard  in  halls 
of  state,  and  in  the  courts  of  princes  and  potentates,  — 
after  it  had  made  him  known  all  over  the  world,  even 

286 


THE  GREAT  STONE  FACE 

as  a  voice  crying  from  shore  to  shore,  —  it  finally  per- 
suaded his  countrymen  to  select  him  for  the  Presidency. 
Before  this  time,  —  indeed,  as  soon  as  he  began  to  grow 
celebrated,  —  his  admirers  had  found  out  the  resem- 
blance between  him  and  the  Great  Stone  Face;  and 
so  much  were  they  struck  by  it,  that  throughout  the 
country  this  distinguished  gentleman  was  known  by  the 
name  of  Old  Stony  Phiz.  The  phrase  was  considered 
as  giving  a  highly  favorable  aspect  to  his  political  pros- 
pects; for,  as  is  likewise  the  case  with  the  Popedom, 
nobody  ever  becomes  President  without  taking  a  name 
other  than  his  own. 

While  his  friends  were  doing  their  best  to  make  him 
President,  Old  Stony  Phiz,  as  he  was  called,  set  out 
on  a  visit  to  the  valley  where  he  was  born.  Of  course, 
he  had  no  other  object  than  to  shake  hands  with  his 
fellow  citizens,  and  neither  thought  nor  cared  about  any 
effect  which  his  progress  through  the  country  might  have 
upon  the  election.  Magnificent  preparations  were  made 
to  receive  the  illustrious  statesman ;  a  cavalcade  of  horse- 
men set  forth  to  meet  him  at  the  boundary  line  of  the 
State,  and  all  the  people  left  their  business  and  gathered 
along  the  wayside  to  see  him  pass.  Among  these  was 
Ernest.  Though  more  than  once  disappointed,  as  we 
have  seen,  he  had  such  a  hopeful  and  confiding  nature, 
that  he  was  always  ready  to  believe  in  whatever  seemed 
beautiful  and  good.  He  kept  his  heart  continually  open, 
and  thus  was  sure  to  catch  the  blessing  from  on  high 
when  it  should  come.  So  now  again,  as  buoyantly  as 
ever,  he  went  forth  to  behold  the  likeness  of  the  Great 
Stone  Face. 

287 


MODERN  STORIES 

The  cavalcade  came  prancing  along  the  road,  with  a 
great  clattering  of  hoofs  and  a  mighty  cloud  of  dust, 
which  rose  up  so  dense  and  high  that  the  visage  of  the 
mountain-side  was  completely  hidden  from  Ernest's 
eyes.  All  the  great  men  of  the  neighborhood  were  there 
on  horseback;  militia  officers,  in  uniform;  the  member 
of  Congress;  the  sheriff  of  the  county;  the  editors  of 
newspapers;  and  many  a  farmer,  too,  had  mounted 
his  patient  steed,  with  his  Sunday  coat  upon  his  back. 
It  really  was  a  very  brilliant  spectacle,  especially  as 
there  were  numerous  banners  flaunting  over  the  caval- 
cade, on  some  of  which  were  gorgeous  portraits  of 
the  illustrious  statesman  and  the  Great  Stone  Face, 
smiling  familiarly  at  one  another,  like  two  brothers.  If 
the  pictures  were  to  be  trusted,  the  mutual  resemblance, 
it  must  be  confessed,  was  marvelous.  We  must  not  for- 
get to  mention  that  there  was  a  band  of  music,  which 
made  the  echoes  of  the  mountains  ring  and  reverberate 
with  the  loud  triumph  of  its  strains ;  so  that  airy  and 
soul-thrilling  melodies  broke  out  among  all  the  heights 
and  hollows,  as  if  every  nook  of  his  native  valley  had 
found  a  voice,  to  welcome  the  distinguished  guest.  But 
the  grandest  effect  was  when  the  far-off  mountain  preci- 
pice flung  back  the  music;  for  then  the  Great  Stone 
Face  itself  seemed  to  be  swelling  the  triumphant  cho- 
rus, in  acknowledgment  that,  at  length,  the  man  of 
prophecy  was  come. 

All  this  while  the  people  were  throwing  up  their  hats 
and  shouting,  with  enthusiasm  so  contagious  that  the 
heart  of  Ernest  kindled  up,  and  he  likewise  threw  up 
his  hat,  and  shouted,  as  loudly  as  the  loudest,  "Huzza 

288 


THE   GREAT  STONE  FACE 

for  the  great  man !    Huzza  for  Old  Stony  Phiz ! "    But 
as  yet  he  had  not  seen  him. 

"Here  he  is,  now!"  cried  those  who  stood  near 
Ernest.  "  There !  There !  Look  at  Old  Stony  Phiz  and 
then  at  the  Old  Man  of  the  Mountain,  and  see  if  they 
are  not  as  like  as  two  twin-brothers!" 

In  the  midst  of  all  this  gallant  array  came  an  open 
barouche,  drawn  by  four  white  horses;  and  in  the 
barouche,  with  his  massive  head  uncovered,  sat  the 
illustrious  statesman,  Old  Stony  Phiz  himself. 

"  Confess  it,"  said  one  of  Ernest's  neighbors  to  him, 
"the  Great  Stone  Face  has  met  its  match  at  last!" 

Now,  it  must  be  owned  that,  at  his  first  glimpse  of 
the  countenance  which  was  bowing  and  smiling  from 
the  barouche,  Ernest  did  fancy  that  there  was  a  resem- 
blance between  it  and  the  old  familiar  face  upon  the 
mountain-side.  The  brow,  with  its  massive  depth  and 
loftiness,  and  all  the  other  features,  indeed,  were  boldly 
and  strongly  hewn,  as  if  in  emulation  of  a  more  than 
heroic,  of  a  Titanic  model.  But  the  sublimity  and  state- 
liness,  the  grand  expression  of  a  divine  sympathy,  that 
illuminated  the  mountain  visage  and  etherealized  its 
ponderous  granite  substance  into  spirit,  might  here 
be  sought  in  vain.  Something  had  been  originally  left 
out,  or  had  departed.  And  therefore  the  marvelously 
gifted  statesman  had  always  a  weary  gloom  in  the  deep 
caverns  of  his  eyes,  as  of  a  child  that  has  outgrown  its 
playthings  or  a  man  of  mighty  faculties  and  little  aims, 
whose  life,  with  all  its  high  performances,  was  vague 
and  empty,  because  no  high  purpose  had  endowed  it 
with  reality. 

289 


MODERN  STORIES 

Still,  Ernest's  neighbor  was  thrusting  his  elbow  into 
his  side,  and  pressing  him  for  an  answer. 

"Confess!  confess!  Is  not  he  the  very  picture  of 
your  Old  Man  of  the  Mountain  ?  " 

"No!"  said  Ernest  bluntly,  "I  see  little  or  no  like- 
ness." 

"  Then  so  much  the  worse  for  the  Great  Stone  Face ! " 
answered  his  neighbor;  and  again  he  set  up  a  shout 
for  Old  Stony  Phiz. 

But  Ernest  turned  away,  melancholy,  and  almost 
despondent;  for  this  was  the  saddest  of  his  disappoint- 
ments, to  behold  a  man  who  might  have  fulfilled  the 
prophecy,  and  had  not  willed  to  do  so.  Meantime,  the 
cavalcade,  the  banners,  the  music,  and  the  barouches 
swept  past  him,  with  the  vociferous  crowd  in  the  rear, 
leaving  the  dust  to  settle  down,  and  the  Great  Stone 
Face  to  be  revealed  again,  with  the  grandeur  that  it 
had  worn  for  untold  centuries. 

"Lo,  here  I  am,  Ernest!"  the  benign  lips  seemed 
to  say.  "I  have  waited  longer  than  thou,  and  am  not 
yet  weary.    Fear  not;  the  man  will  come." 

The  years  hurried  onward,  treading  in  their  haste 
on  one  another's  heels.  And  now  they  began  to  bring 
white  hairs,  and  scatter  them  over  the  head  of  Ernest; 
they  made  reverend  wrinkles  across  his  forehead,  and 
furrows  in  his  cheeks.  He  was  an  aged  man.  But  not 
in  vain  had  he  grown  old:  more  than  the  white  hairs 
on  his  head  were  the  sage  thoughts  in  his  mind;  his 
wrinkles  and  furrows  were  inscriptions  that  Time  had 
graved,  and  in  which  he  had  written  legends  of  wisdom 
that  had  been  tested  by  the  tenor  of  a  life.   And  Ernest 

290 


THE   GREAT  STONE  FACE 

had  ceased  to  be  obscure.  Unsought  for,  undesired, 
had  come  the  fame  which  so  many  seek,  and  made  him 
known  in  the  great  world,  beyond  the  limits  of  the  val- 
ley in  which  he  had  dwelt  so  quietly.  College  profes- 
sors, and  even  the  active  men  of  cities,  came  from  far 
to  see  and  converse  with  Ernest;  for  the  report  had 
gone  abroad  that  this  simple  husbandman  had  ideas 
unlike  those  of  other  men,  not  gained  from  books,  but 
of  a  higher  tone,  —  a  tranquil  and  familiar  majesty, 
as  if  he  had  been  talking  with  the  angels  as  his  daily 
friends.  Whether  it  were  sage,  statesman,  or  philan- 
thropist, Ernest  received  these  visitors  with  the  gentle 
sincerity  that  had  characterized  him  from  boyhood, 
and  spoke  freely  with  them  of  whatever  came  upper- 
most, or  lay  deepest  in  his  heart  or  their  own.  While 
they  talked  together,  his  face  would  kindle,  unawares, 
and  shine  upon  them,  as  with  a  mild  evening  light. 
Pensive  with  the  fullness  of  such  discourse,  his  guests 
took  leave  and  went  their  way;  and  passing  up  the 
valley,  paused  to  look  at  the  Great  Stone  Face,  im- 
agining that  they  had  seen  its  likeness  in  a  human  coun- 
tenance, but  could  not  remember  where. 

While  Ernest  had  been  growing  up  and  growing 
old,  a  bountiful  Providence  had  granted  a  new  poet  to 
this  earth.  He,  likewise,  was  a  native  of  the  valley, 
but  had  spent  the  greater  part  of  his  life  at  a  distance 
from  that  romantic  region,  pouring  out  his  sweet  music 
amid  the  bustle  and  din  of  cities.  Often,  however,  did 
the  mountains  which  had  been  familiar  to  him  in  hi? 
childhood  lift  their  snowy  peaks  into  the  clear  atmos 
phere  of  his  poetry.   Neither  was  the  Great  Stone  Face 

291 


MODERN  STORIES 

forgotten,  for  the  poet  had  celebrated  it  in  an  ode,  which 
was  grand  enough  to  have  been  uttered  by  its  own 
majestic  lips.  This  man  of  genius,  we  may  say,  had 
come  down  from  heaven  with  wonderful  endowments. 
If  he  sang  of  a  mountain,  the  eyes  of  all  mankind  be- 
held a  mightier  grandeur  reposing  on  its  breast,  or  soar- 
ing to  its  summit,  than  had  before  been  seen  there.  If 
his  theme  were  a  lovely  lake,  a  celestial  smile  had  now 
been  thrown  over  it,  to  gleam  forever  on  its  surface.  If 
it  were  the  vast  old  sea,  even  the  deep  immensity  of  its 
dread  bosom  seemed  to  swell  the  higher,  as  if  moved 
by  the  emotions  of  the  song.  Thus  the  world  assumed 
another  and  a  better  aspect  from  the  hour  that  the  poet 
blessed  it  with  his  happy  eyes.  The  Creator  had  be- 
stowed him,  as  the  last  best  touch  to  his  own  handiwork. 
Creation  was  not  finished  till  the  poet  came  to  inter- 
pret, and  so  complete  it. 

The  effect  was  no  less  high  and  beautiful,  when  his 
human  brethren  were  the  subject  of  his  verse.  The 
man  or  woman,  sordid  with  the  common  dust  of  life, 
who  crossed  his  daily  path,  and  the  little  child  who 
played  in  it,  were  glorified  if  he  beheld  them  in  his  mood 
of  poetic  faith.  He  showed  the  golden  links  of  the  great 
chain  that  intertwined  them  with  an  angelic  kindred; 
he  brought  out  the  hidden  traits  of  a  celestial  birth 
that  made  them  worthy  of  such  kin.  Some,  indeed, 
there  were,  who  thought  to  show  the  soundness  of  their 
judgment  by  affirming  that  all  the  beauty  and  dignity 
of  the  natural  world  existed  only  in  the  poet's  fancy. 
Let  such  men  speak  for  themselves,  who  undoubtedly 
appear  to  have  been  spawned  forth  by  Nature  with  a 

292 


THE   GREAT  STONE  FACE 

contemptuous  bitterness ;  she  having  plastered  them  up 
out  of  her  refuse  stuff,  after  all  the  swine  were  made. 
As  respects  all  things  else,  the  poet's  ideal  was  the  truest 
truth. 

The  songs  of  this  poet  found  their  way  to  Ernest. 
He  read  them  after  his  customary  toil,  seated  on  the 
bench  before  his  cottage  door,  where  for  such  a  length 
of  time  he  had  filled  his  repose  with  thought,  by  gazing 
at  the  Great  Stone  Face.  And  now  as  he  read  stanzas 
that  caused  the  soul  to  thrill  within  him,  he  lifted  his 
eyes  to  the  vast  countenance  beaming  on  him  so  be- 
nignantly. 

"O  majestic  friend,"  he  murmured,  addressing  the 
Great  Stone  Face,  "  is  not  this  man  worthy  to  resemble 
thee?" 

The  Face  seemed  to  smile,  but  answered  not  a  word. 

Now  it  happened  that  the  poet,  though  he  dwelt  so 
far  away,  had  not  only  heard  of  Ernest,  but  had  medi- 
tated much  upon  his  character,  until  he  deemed  nothing 
so  desirable  as  to  meet  this  man,  whose  untaught  wis- 
dom walked  hand  in  hand  with  the  noble  simplicity 
of  his  life.  One  summer  morning,  therefore,  he  took 
passage  by  the  railroad,  and,  in  the  decline  of  the  after- 
noon, alighted  from  the  cars  at  no  great  distance  from 
Ernest's  cottage.  The  great  hotel,  which  had  formerly 
been  the  palace  of  Mr.  Gathergold,  was  close  at  hand ; 
but  the  poet,  with  his  carpet-bag  on  his  arm,  inquired 
at  once  where  Ernest  dwelt,  and  was  resolved  to  be 
accepted  as  his  guest. 

Approaching  the  door,  he  there  found  the  good  old 
man,  holding  a  volume  in  his  hand,  which  alternately 

293 


MODERN  STORIES 

he  read,  and  then,  with  a  finger  between  the  leavesfJ 
looked  lovingly  at  the  Great  Stone  Face. 

"Good-evening,"  said  the  poet.  "Can  you  give  a 
traveler  a  night's  lodging  ?  " 

"Willingly,"  answered  Ernest;  and  then  he  added, 
smiling,  "Methinks  I  never  saw  the  Great  Stone  Face 
look  so  hospitably  at  a  stranger." 

The  poet  sat  down  on  the  bench  beside  him,  and  he 
and  Ernest  talked  together.  Often  had  the  poet  held 
intercourse  with  the  wittiest  and  the  wisest,  but  never 
before  with  a  man  like  Ernest,  whose  thoughts  and  feel- 
ings gushed  up  with  such  a  natural  freedom,  and  who 
made  great  truths  so  familiar  by  his  simple  utterance 
of  them.  Angels,  as  had  been  so  often  said,  seemed 
to  have  wrought  with  him  at  his  labor  in  the  fields; 
angels  seemed  to  have  sat  with  him  by  the  fireside; 
and,  dwelling  with  angels  as  friend  with  friends,  he 
had  imbibed  the  sublimity  of  their  ideas,  and  imbued 
it  with  the  sweet  and  lowly  charm  of  household  words. 
So  thought  the  poet.  And  Ernest,  on  the  other  hand, 
was  moved  and  agitated  by  the  living  images  which 
the  poet  flung  out  of  his  mind,  and  which  peopled  all 
the  air  about  the  cottage  door  with  shapes  of  beauty, 
both  gay  and  pensive.  The  sympathies  of  these  two 
men  instructed  them  with  a  prof  ounder  sense  than  either 
could  have  attained  alone.  Their  minds  accorded  into 
one  strain,  and  made  delightful  music  which  neither 
of  them  could  have  claimed  as  all  his  own,  nor  dis- 
tinguished his  own  share  from  the  other's.  They  led 
one  another,  as  it  were,  into  a  high  pavilion  of  their 
thoughts,  so  remote,  and  hitherto  so  dim,  that  the^ 

294 


THE   GREAT  STONE   FACE 

had  never  entered  it  before,  and  so  beautiful  that  they 
desired  to  be  there  always. 

As  Ernest  listened  to  the  poet,  he  imagined  that  the 
Great  Stone  Face  was  bending  forward  to  listen  too. 
He  gazed  earnestly  into  the  poet's  glowing  eyes. 

"Who  are  you,  my  strangely  gifted  guest?"  he  said. 

The  poet  laid  his  finger  on  the  volume  that  Ernest 
had  been  reading. 

"  You  have  read  these  poems,"  said  he.  "  You  know 
me,  then,  —  for  I  wrote  them." 

Again,  and  still  more  earnestly  than  before,  Ernest 
examined  the  poet's  features;  then  turned  towards  the 
Great  Stone  Face;  then  back,  with  an  uncertain  as- 
pect, to  his  guest.  But  his  countenance  fell;  he  shook 
his  head,  and  sighed. 

"  Wherefore  are  you  sad  ?  "  inquired  the  poet. 

"Because,"  replied  Ernest,  "all  through  life  I  have 
awaited  the  fulfillment  of  a  prophecy;  and,  when  I 
read  these  poems,  I  hoped  that  it  might  be  fulfilled  in 

you." 

"You  hoped,"  answered  the  poet,  faintly  smiling, 
"to  find  in  me  the  likeness  of  the  Great  Stone  Face. 
And  you  are  disappointed,  as  formerly  with  Mr.  Gather- 
gold,  and  Old  Blood-and-Thunder,  and  Old  Stony 
Phiz.  Yes,  Ernest,  it  is  my  doom.  You  must  add  my 
name  to  the  illustrious  three,  and  record  another  fail- 
ure of  your  hopes.  For  —  in  shame  and  sadness  do  I 
speak  it,  Ernest  —  I  am  not  worthy  to  be  typified  by 
yonder  benign  and  majestic  image." 

"And  why?"  asked  Ernest.  He  pointed  to  the  vol- 
ume.   "  Are  not  those  thoughts  divine  ?  " 

295 


MODERN  STORIES 

"They  have  a.  strain  of  the  Divinity,"  replied  the 
poet.  "You  can  hear  in  them  the  far-off  echo  of  a 
heavenly  song.  But  my  life,  dear  Ernest,  has  not  cor- 
responded with  my  thought.  I  have  had  grand  dreams, 
but  they  have  been  only  dreams,  because  I  have  lived 
—  and  that,  too,  by  my  own  choice  —  among  poor  and 
mean  realities.  Sometimes  even  —  shall  I  dare  to  say 
it  ?  —  I  lack  faith  in  the  grandeur,  the  beauty,  and  the 
goodness  which  my  own  works  are  said  to  have  made 
more  evident  in  nature  and  in  human  life.  Why,  then, 
pure  seeker  of  the  good  and  true,  shouldst  thou  hope 
to  find  me  in  yonder  image  of  the  divine  ?  " 

The  poet  spoke  sadly,  and  his  eyes  were  dim  with 
tears.    So,  likewise,  were  those  of  Ernest. 

At  the  hour  of  sunset,  as  had  long  been  his  frequent 
custom,  Ernest  was  to  discourse  to  an  assemblage  of 
the  neighboring  inhabitants  in  the  open  air.  He  and 
the  poet,  arm  in  arm,  still  talking  together  as  they  went 
along,  proceeded  to  the  spot.  It  was  a  small  nook 
among  the  hills,  with  a  gray  precipice  behind,  the  stern 
front  of  which  was  relieved  by  the  pleasant  foliage  of 
many  creeping  plants  that  made  a  tapestry  for  the  naked 
rock,  by  hanging  their  festoons  from  all  its  rugged 
angles.  At  a  small  elevation  above  the  ground,  set  in 
a  rich  framework  of  verdure,  there  appeared  a  niche, 
spacious  enough  to  admit  a  human  figure,  with  free- 
dom for  such  gestures  as  spontaneously  accompany 
earnest  thought  and  genuine  emotion.  Into  this  natu- 
ral pulpit  Ernest  ascended,  and  threw  a  look  of  famil- 
iar kindness  around  upon  his  audience.  They  stood, 
or  sat,  or  reclined  upon  the  grass,  as  seemed  good  to 

296 


THE  GREAT  STONE  FACE 

each,  with  the  departing  sunshine  falling  obliquely  over 
them,  and  mingling  its  subdued  cheerfulness  with  the 
solemnity  of  a  grove  of  ancient  trees,  beneath  and  amid 
the  boughs  of  which  the  golden  rays  were  constrained  to 
pass.  In  another  direction  was  seen  the  Great  Stone 
Face,  with  the  same  cheer,  combined  with  the  same 
solemnity,  in  its  benignant  aspect. 

Ernest  began  to  speak,  giving  to  the  people  of  what 
was  in  his  heart  and  mind.  His  words  had  power, 
because  they  accorded  with  his  thoughts;  and  his 
thoughts  had  reality  and  depth,  because  they  harmo- 
nized with  the  life  which  he  had  always  lived.  It  was 
not  mere  breath  that  this  preacher  uttered;  they  were 
the  words  of  life,  because  a  life  of  good  deeds  and 
holy  love  was  melted  into  them.  Pearls,  pure  and  rich, 
had  been  dissolved  into  this  precious  draught.  The 
poet,  as  he  listened,  felt  that  the  being  and  character 
of  Ernest  were  a  nobler  strain  of  poetry  than  he  had 
ever  written.  His  eyes  glistening  with  tears,  he  gazed 
reverentially  at  the  venerable  man,  and  said  within 
himself  that  never  was  there  an  aspect  so  worthy  of  a 
prophet  and  a  sage  as  that  mild,  sweet,  thoughtful 
countenance,  with  the  glory  of  white  hair  diffused  about 
it.  At  a  distance,  but  distinctly  to  be  seen,  high  up  in 
the  golden  light  of  the  setting  sun,  appeared  the  Great 
Stone  Face,  with  hoary  mists  around  it,  like  the  white 
hairs  around  the  brow  of  Ernest.  Its  look  of  grand 
beneficence  seemed  to  embrace  the  world. 

At  that  moment,  in  sympathy  with  a  thought  which 
he  was  about  to  utter,  the  face  of  Ernest  assumed  a 
grandeur  of  expression,  so  imbued  with  benevolence, 

297 


MODERN  STORIES 

that  the  poet,  by  an  irresistible  impulse,  threw  his  arms 
aloft,  and  shouted,  — 

"Behold!  Behold!  Ernest  is  himself  the  likeness 
of  the  Great  Stone  Face!" 

Then  all  the  people  looked,  and  saw  that  what  the 
deep-sighted  poet  said  was  true.  The  prophecy  was 
fulfilled.  But  Ernest,  having  finished  what  he  had  to 
say,  took  the  poet's  arm,  and  walked  slowly  homeward, 
still  hoping  that  some  wiser  and  better  man  than  him- 
self would  by  and  by  appear,  bearing  a  resemblance  to 
the  Great  Stone  Face. 


FARMER   FINCH 

By  Sarah  Orne  Jewett 

IT  was  as  bleak  and  sad  a  day  as  one  could  well  im- 
agine. The  time  of  year  was  early  in  December, 
and  the  daylight  was  already  fading,  though  it  was  only 
a  little  past  the  middle  of  the  afternoon.  John  Finch 
was  driving  toward  his  farm,  which  he  had  left  early 
in  the  morning  to  go  to  town;  but  to  judge  from  his  face 
one  might  have  been  sure  that  his  business  had  not  been 
successful.  He  looked  pinched  and  discouraged  with 
something  besides  the  cold,  and  he  hardly  noticed  the 
faithful  red  horse  which  carefully  made  its  way  over 
the  frozen  ruts  of  the  familiar  road. 

There  had  lately  been  a  few  days  of  mild  weather, 
when  the  ground  had  had  time  to  thaw;  but  with  a 
sudden  blast  of  cold  this  deep  mud  had  become  like 
iron,  rough  and  ragged,  and  jarring  the  people  and 
horses  cruelly  who  tried  to  travel  over  it.  The  road  lay 
through  the  bleak  country  side  of  the  salt-marshes  which 
stretched  themselves  away  toward  the  sea,  dotted  here 
and  there  with  haycocks,  and  crossed  in  wavering  lines 
by  the  inlets  and  ditches,  filled  now  with  grayish  ice, 
that  was  sinking  and  cracking  as  the  tide  ran  out.  The 
marsh-grass  was  wind-swept  and  beaten  until  it  looked 
as  soft  and  brown  as  fur;  the  wind  had  free  course  over 
it,  and  it  looked  like  a  deserted  bit  of  the  world;  the 

299 


MODERN  STORIES 

battered  and  dingy  flat-bottomed  boats  were  fastened 
securely  in  their  tiny  harbors,  or  pulled  far  ashore  as  if 
their  usefulness  was  over,  not  only  for  that  season  but 
for  all  time.  In  some  late  autumn  weather  one  feels  as 
if  summer  were  over  with  forever,  and  as  if  no  resur- 
rection could  follow  such  unmistakable  and  hopeless 
death. 

Where  the  land  was  higher  it  looked  rocky  and  rough, 
and  behind  the  marshes  there  were  some  low  hills 
looking  as  if  they  were  solid  stone  to  their  cores,  and 
sparingly  overgrown  with  black  and  rigid  cedars.  These 
stood  erect  from  the  least  to  the  greatest,  a  most  unbend- 
ing and  heartless  family,  which  meant  to  give  neither 
shade  in  summer  nor  shelter  in  winter.  No  wind  could 
overturn  them,  for  their  roots  went  down  like  wires 
into  the  ledges,  and  no  drought  could  dry  away  the  in- 
most channels  of  vigorous  though  scanty  sap  that  ran 
soberly  through  their  tough,  unfruitful  branches. 

In  one  place  the  hills  formed  an  amphitheatre  open 
on  the  side  toward  the  sea,  and  here  on  this  bleak  day 
it  seemed  as  if  some  dismal  ceremony  were  going  for- 
ward. As  one  caught  sight  of  the  solemn  audience  of 
black  and  gloomy  cedars  that  seemed  to  have  come 
together  to  stand  on  the  curving  hillsides,  one  instinc- 
tively looked  down  at  the  level  arena  of  marsh-land 
below,  half  fearing  to  see  some  awful  sacrificial  rite  or 
silent  combat.  It  might  be  an  angry  Company  of  ham- 
adryads, who  had  taken  the  shape  of  cedar  trees  on  this 
day  of  revenge  and  terror.  It  was  difficult  to  believe 
that  one  would  ever  see  them  again,  and  that  the  sum- 
mer and  winter  days  alike  would  find  them  looking 

300 


FARMER  FINCH 

down  at  the  grave  business  which  was  invisible  to  the 
rest  of  the  world.  The  little  trees  stood  beside  their 
elders  in  families,  solemn  and  stern,  and  some  miser- 
able men  may  have  heard  the  secret  as  they  stumbled 
through  the  snow  praying  for  shelter,  lost  and  frozen 
on  a  winter  night. 

If  you  lie  down  along  the  rough  grass  in  the  slender 
shadow  of  a  cedar  and  look  off  to  sea,  in  a  summer 
afternoon,  you  only  hear  a  whisper  like  "  Hush !  hush ! " 
as  the  wind  comes  through  the  stiff  branches.  The 
boughs  reach  straight  upward;  you  cannot  lie  under- 
neath and  look  through  them  at  the  sky;  the  tree  all 
reaches  away  from  the  ground  as  if  it  had  a  horror  of 
it,  and  shrank  from  even  the  breeze  and  the  sunshine. 

On  this  December  day,  as  the  blasts  of  wind  struck 
them,  they  gave  one  stiff,  unwilling  bend,  and  then  stood 
erect  again.  The  road  wound  along  between  the  sea- 
meadows  and  the  hills,  and  poor  John  Finch  seemed 
to  be  the  only  traveler.  He  was  lost  in  thought,  and  the 
horse  still  went  plodding  on.  The  worn  buffalo-robe 
was  dragging  from  one  side  of  the  wagon,  and  had 
slipped  down  off  the  driver's  knees.  He  hardly  knew 
that  he  held  the  reins.  He  was  in  no  hurry  to  get  home, 
cold  as  it  was,  for  he  had  only  bad  news  to  tell. 

Polly  Finch,  his  only  daughter,  was  coming  toward 
home  from  the  opposite  direction,  and  with  her  also 
things  had  gone  wrong.  She  was  a  bright,  good-natured 
girl  of  about  twenty,  but  she  looked  old  and  care-worn 
that  day.  She  was  dressed  in  her  best  clothes,  as  if  she 
had  been  away  on  some  important  affair,  perhaps  to 
a  funeral,  and  she  was  shivering  and  wholly  chilled 

301 


MODERN  STORIES 

in  spite  of  the  shawl  which  her  mother  had  insisted 
upon  her  carrying.  It  had  been  a  not  uncomfortable 
morning  for  that  time  of  year,  and  she  had  flouted  the 
extra  wrap  at  first,  but  now  she  hugged  it  close,  and 
half  buried  her  face  in  its  folds.  The  sky  was  gray 
and  heavy,  except  in  the  west,  where  it  was  a  clear,  cold 
shade  of  yellow.  All  the  leafless  bushes  and  fluffy  brown 
tops  of  the  dead  asters  and  goldenrods  stood  out  in 
exquisitely  delicate  silhouettes  against  the  sky  on  the 
high  roadsides,  while  some  tattered  bits  of  blackberry 
vine  held  still  a  dull  glow  of  color.  As  Polly  passed  a 
barberry  bush  that  grew  above  her  she  was  forced  to 
stop,  for,  gray  and  winterish  as  it  had  been  on  her 
approach,  when  she  looked  at  it  from  the  other  side  it 
seemed  to  be  glowing  with  rubies.  The  sun  was  shin- 
ing out  pleasantly  now  that  it  had  sunk  below  the 
clouds,  and  in  these  late  golden  rays  the  barberry  bush 
had  taken  on  a  great  splendor.  It  gave  Polly  a  start, 
and  it  cheered  her  not  a  little,  this  sudden  transforma- 
tion, and  she  even  went  back  along  the  road  a  little  way 
to  see  it  again  as  she  had  at  first  in  its  look  of  misery. 
The  berries  that  still  clung  to  its  thorny  branches  looked 
dry  and  spoiled,  but  a  few  steps  forward  again  made 
them  shine  out,  and  take  on  a  beauty  that  neither  sum- 
mer nor  autumn  had  given  them,  and  Polly  gave  her 
head  a  little  shake.  "There  are  two  ways  of  looking 
at  more  things  than  barberry  bushes,"  she  said  aloud, 
and  went  off  with  brisker  steps  down  the  road. 

At  home  in  the  farmhouse  Mrs.  Finch  had  been  wait- 
ing for  her  husband  and  daughter  to  come,  until  she 
had  grown  tired  and  hungry  and  almost  frightened. 

302 


FARMER  FINCH 

Perhaps  the  day  had  been  longer  and  harder  to  her 
than  to  any  one  else.  She  had  thought  of  so  many 
cautions  and  suggestions  that  she  might  have  given 
them  both;  and  though  the  father's  errand  was  a  much 
more  important  one,  still  she  had  built  much  hope  on  the 
possibility  of  Polly's  encounter  with  the  school  committee 
proving  successful.  Things  had  been  growing  very 
dark  in  Mr.  Finch's  business  affairs,  and  they  had  all 
looked  with  great  eagerness  toward  her  securing  a  sit- 
uation as  teacher  of  one  of  the  town  schools.  It  was 
at  no  great  distance,  so  that  Polly  could  easily  board 
at  home,  and  many  things  seemed  to  depend  upon  it, 
even  if  the  bank  business  turned  out  better  than  was 
feared.  Our  heroine  had  in  her  childhood  been  much 
praised  for  her  good  scholarship,  and  stood  at  the  head 
of  the  district  school,  and  it  had  been  urged  upon  her 
father  and  mother  by  her  teachers,  and  by  other  friends 
more  or  less  wise,  that  she  should  have  what  they  called 
an  education.  It  had  been  a  hard  thing  both  for  her 
father  to  find  the  money,  and  for  her  mother  to  get  on 
without  her  help  in  the  housework,  but  they  had  both 
managed  to  get  along,  and  Polly  had  acquitted  herself 
nobly  in  the  ranks  of  a  neighboring  academy,  and  for 
the  last  year  had  been  a  pupil  in  the  normal  school. 
She  had  been  very  happy  in  her  school  life,  and  very 
popular  both  with  scholars  and  teachers.  She  was 
friendly  and  social  by  nature,  and  it  had  been  very 
pleasant  to  her  to  be  among  so  many  young  people. 
The  routine  and  petty  ceremony  of  her  years  of  study 
did  not  fret  her,  for  she  was  too  strong  and  good-natured 
even  to  be  worn  upon  or  much  tired  with  the  unwhole- 

303 


MODERN  STORIES 

some  life  she  lived.  It  was  easy  enough  for  her  to  get 
her  lessons,  and  so  she  went  through  with  flying  colors, 
and  cried  a  little  when  the  last  day  arrived;  but  she 
felt  less  regret  than  most  of  the  girls  who  were  turned 
out  then  upon  the  world,  some  of  them  claiming  truth- 
fully that  they  had  finished  their  education,  since  they 
had  not  wit  enough  to  learn  anything  more,  either  with 
schoolbooks  in  their  hands  or  without  them. 

It  came  to  Polly's  mind  as  she  stood  in  a  row  with 
the  rest  of  the  girls,  while  the  old  minister  who  was 
chief  of  the  trustees  gave  them  their  diplomas,  and  some 
very  good  advice  besides:  "I  wonder  why  we  all  made 
up  our  minds  to  be  teachers  ?  I  wonder  if  we  are  going 
to  be  good  ones,  and  if  I  should  n't  have  liked  some- 
thing else  a  great  deal  better  ? " 

Certainly  she  had  met  with  a  disappointment  at  the 
beginning  of  her  own  career,  for  she  had  seen  that  it 
was  necessary  for  her  to  be  within  reach  of  home,  and  it 
seemed  as  if  every  school  of  the  better  class  had  been 
provided  with  a  teacher.  She  had  been  so  confident 
of  her  powers  and  mindful  of  her  high  standing  at  the 
normal  school  that  it  seemed  at  first  that  a  fine  position 
ought  to  be  hers  for  the  asking.  But  one  after  another 
her  plans  had  fallen  to  the  ground,  until  this  last  one, 
which  had  just  been  decided  against  her  also.  It  had 
never  occurred  to  her  at  first  as  a  possible  thing  that 
she  should  apply  for  the  small  town  school  in  her  own 
district ;  to  tell  the  truth,  it  was  a  great  downfall  of  pride 
to  the  family,  but  they  had  said  to  each  other  that  it 
would  be  well  for  Polly  to  have  the  winter  at  home,  and 
in  spring  she  could  suit  herself  exactly.    But  everybody 

304 


FARMER  FINCH 

had  felt  the  impossibility  of  her  remaining  idle,  and  no 
wonder  her  heart  sank  as  she  went  toward  home,  know- 
ing that  she  must  tell  them  that  another  had  been  chosen 
to  fill  the  place. 

Mrs.  Finch  looked  at  the  fire,  and  looked  out  of  the 
window  down  the  road,  and  took  up  the  stocking  she 
was  knitting  and  tried  to  work  at  it ;  but  every  half-hour 
that  went  by  doubled  her  uneasiness,  and  she  looked 
out  of  the  window  altogether  at  last,  until  the  fire  was 
almost  burned  out,  and  the  knitting  lay  untouched  in 
her  lap.  She  was  a  tall,  fine-looking  woman,  with  a 
worn,  well-featured  face,  and  thinnish  hair  that  had 
once  been  light  brown,  but  was  much  faded  and  not  a 
little  gray  in  these  later  years.  It  had  been  thought 
a  pity  that  she  married  John  Finch,  who  had  not  half 
so  much  force  as  she;  and  with  all  her  wisdom  and 
affection  and  economy,  every  year  had  seemed  to  take 
away  something  from  them,  leaving  few  gifts  and 
gains  in  exchange.  At  first  her  pride  and  ambition, 
which  were  reasonable  enough,  always  clung  to  her 
husband's  plans  and  purposes;  but  as  she  saw  year 
after  year  that  he  stayed  exactly  in  the  same  place,  mak- 
ing little  headway  either  in  farming  or  anything  else, 
she  began  to  live  more  and  more  in  her  daughter's  life, 
and  looked  eagerly  to  see  her  win  her  way  and  gain 
an  honorable  place,  first  in  her  school  life,  and  after- 
ward as  a  teacher.  She  had  never  dreamed  beforehand 
of  the  difficulties  that  had  assailed  Polly  since  she  came 
home  the  head  of  her  class  in  June.  She  had  supposed 
that  it  would  be  an  easy  thing  for  her  now  to  find  a  good 
situation  in  a  high  or  private  school,  with  a  capital  sal- 

305 


MODERN  STORIES 

ary.  She  hated  to  think  there  was  nothing  for  her  but 
to  hold  sway  over  the  few  scholars  in  the  little  unpainted 
schoolhouse  half  a  mile  down  the  road,  even  though 
the  girl,  who  was  the  very  delight  of  her  heart,  should 
be  with  her  so  much  more  than  they  had  expected  at 
first.  She  was  a  kind,  simple-hearted,  good  woman, 
this  elder  Mary  Finch,  and  she  had  borne  her  failing  for- 
tunes with  perfect  bravery;  she  had  been  the  sunshine 
and  inspiration  of  the  somewhat  melancholy  house  for 
many  years. 

At  last  she  saw  her  husband  coming  along  the  road, 
and  even  that  far-away  first  glimpse  of  him  told  her 
that  she  would  hear  no  good  news.  He  pulled  up  the 
fallen  buffalo-robe  over  his  lap,  and  sat  erect,  and  tried 
to  look  unconcerned  as  he  drove  into  the  yard,  but  it 
was  some  time  before  he  came  into  the  house.  He  un- 
harnessed the  horse  with  stiff  and  shaking  hands,  and 
gave  him  his  supper,  and  turned  the  old  wagon  and 
backed  it  into  its  place  before  he  came  in.  Polly  had 
come  home  also  by  that  time,  and  was  sitting  by  the 
window,  and  did  not  turn  to  speak  to  him.  His  wife 
looked  old,  and  her  face  was  grayish,  and  the  lines  of 
it  were  hard  and  drawn  in  strange  angles. 
•  "You  had  better  sit  right  down  by  the  fire,  John," 
she  told  him,  "  and  I  '11  get  you  and  Polly  a  good  hot 
supper  right  away.  I  think,  like 's  not,  you  did  n't  get 
a  mouthful  of  dinner." 

"  I  've  no  need  to  tell  you  I  've  got  bad  news,"  he 
said.  "The  bank's  failed,  and  they  won't  pay  more 'n 
ten  cents  on  a  dollar,  if  they  make  out  to  do  that.  It 's 
worse  than  we  ever  thought  it  could  be.    The  cashier 

306 


FARMER  FINCH 

got  speculating,  and  he  's  made  'way  with  about  every- 
thing." 

It  seemed  to  him  as  if  he  had  known  this  for  years, 
it  was  such  an  old,  sad  story  already,  and  he  almost 
wondered  at  the  surprise  and  anger  that  his  wife  and 
Polly  showed  at  once.  It  made  him  a  little  impatient 
that  they  would  ask  him  so  many  eager  questions.  This 
was  the  worst  piece  of  misfortune  that  had  ever  come 
to  him.  Although  they  had  heard  the  day  before  that 
the  bank  would  pass  its  dividend,  and  had  been  much 
concerned  and  troubled,  and  had  listened  incredulously 
to  worse  stories  of  the  condition  of  the  bank's  finances, 
they  had  looked  for  nothing  like  this. 

There  was  little  to  be  said,  but  everything  to  be 
thought  and  feared.  They  had  put  entire  confidence 
in  this  bank's  security,  and  the  money  which  had  be- 
longed to  John  Finch's  father  had  always  been  left  there 
to  draw  a  good  yearly  interest.  The  farm  was  not  very 
productive,  and  they  had  depended  upon  this  dividend 
for  a  large  part  of  their  ready  money.  Much  of  their 
other  property  had  dwindled  away.  If  ever  there  had 
been  a  prospect  of  making  much  off  the  farm,  some- 
thing had  interfered.  One  year  a  piece  of  woodland  had 
been  cleared  at  considerable  expense,  and  on  the  day 
before  its  unlucky  owner  was  to  begin  to  haul  the  great 
stacks  of  fire-wood  down  to  the  little  wharf  in  the 
marshes,  from  whence  they  could  be  carried  away  to 
market  by  schooners,  the  fire  got  in,  and  the  flames  of 
the  fallen  pines  made  a  torch  that  lighted  all  that  part 
of  the  country  for  more  nights  than  one.  There  was 
no  insurance  and  no  remedy,  and,  as  an  old  neighbor 

307 


MODERN  STORIES 

told  the  unhappy  owner,  "the  woods  would  not  grow 
again  in  his  time."  John  Finch  was  a  cheerful  man 
naturally,  and  very  sure  of  the  success  of  his  plans;  it 
was  rare  to  see  him  so  entirely  down-hearted  and  dis- 
couraged, but  lately  he  had  seemed  to  his  wife  some- 
body to  be  protected  and  looked  after  even  more  than 
Polly.  She  sometimes  felt  the  weight  of  the  years  she 
had  lived,  and  as  if  she  must  be  already  very  old,  but 
he  was  the  same  boyish  person  to  her  as  when  she  had 
married  him;  it  often  seemed  possible  that  he  should 
have  his  life  still  before  him.  She  could  not  believe  until 
very  lately  that  it  was  too  late  for  him  to  start  out  on 
any  enterprise.  Time  had,  indeed,  touched  him  more 
lightly  than  it  had  herself,  though  he  had  the  face  and 
something  of  the  manner  and  faults  of  an  elderly  and 
unsuccessful  man. 

They  sat  together  in  the  kitchen,  which  had  sud- 
denly grown  dark.  Mary  Finch  was  as  cold  as  either 
of  her  companions,  and  was  angry  with  herself  for  her 
shivering  and  want  of  courage.  She  was  almost  afraid 
to  speak  at  last  for  fear  of  crying;  she  felt  strangely 
unstrung  and  weak.  The  two  women  had  told  John 
of  Polly's  disappointment,  that  the  agent  for  the  dis- 
trict had  given  the  school  to  his  own  niece,  a  young  girl 
from  Salem,  who  was  to  board  at  his  house,  and  help 
his  wife  as  much  as  she  could  with  the  housework  out 
of  school-hours.  "It's  all  of  a  piece  to-day,"  groaned 
the  farmer.    "  I  'm  sorry  for  ye,  Polly." 

"  She  may  hear  of  something  yet,"  said  Mrs.  Finch, 
making  a  great  effort  to  speak  cheerfully.  "  You  know 
they  have  her  name  at  the  normal  school;  people  are 

308 


FARMER  FINCH 

always  sending  there  for  teachers,  and  oftentimes  one 
fails  at  the  last  minute  through  sickness,  and  I  should  n't 
wonder  if  Polly  found  a  good  place  yet  in  that  way." 

"I  declare  I  don't  know  how  we  shall  get  along," 
moaned  Polly's  father,  to  whom  his  daughter's  trouble 
seemed  only  a  small  part  of  the  general  misfortunes. 
"Here's  winter  coming,  and  I'm  likely  to  be  laid  up 
any  day  with  my  rheumatics,  and  I  don't  see  how  we 
can  afford  even  to  take  a  boy  to  work  for  his  board  and 
clothes.  I've  got  a  few  trees  I  can  cut,  and  one  cow 
I  can  sell;  but  there  are  the  taxes  to  pay,  and  the 
minister,  and  money  to  lay  out  on  fences,  come  spring. 
The  farm  ran  behind  last  year,  too." 

Polly  rose  impatiently  and  took  down  a  lamp  from 
the  high  chimney-shelf,  knocking  down  the  match- 
box as  she  did  so,  which  was,  after  all,  a  good  deal  of 
relief.  She  put  the  light  on  the  floor  while  she  picked 
up  the  scattered  matches,  and  her  mother  took  a  good 
look  at  her,  and  was  somehow  made  to  feel  stronger 
at  the  sight  of  Polly's  face. 

"I  guess  we'd  all  better  have  some  supper,"  said  the 
girl.  "I  never  should  feel  so  discouraged  if  I  was  n't 
hungry.  And  now  I'm  going  to  tell  you  what  I  mean 
to  do.  I  'm  going  to  put  right  to  and  go  to  work  out-doors 
and  in,  and  I  'm  going  to  help  father  same  as  if  I  were 
a  boy.  I  believe  I  should  like  farming  now  twice  as  well 
as  teaching,  and  make  a  good  deal  more  money  at  it. 
I  have  n't  a  gift  for  teaching,  and  I  know  it,  but  I  don't 
mean  that  what  I  learned  shall  be  thrown  away.  Now 
we  've  got  hay  for  the  stock,  plenty  of  it,  and  we  Ve  got 
potatoes  and  apples  and  turnips  and  cider  in  the  cellar, 

309 


MODERN  STORIES 

and  a  good  pig  to  kill,  and  so  there's  no  danger  that 
we  shall  starve.  I  'm  just  as  strong  as  I  can  be,  and  I 
am  going  right  to  work,  at  any  rate  until  I  get  a  school 
with  a  first-rate  salary  that  '11  be  worth  more  than  my 
help  will  here." 

"I'm  sure  I  don't  want  you  to  throw  away  such  a 
good  education  as  you've  had,  for  us,"  said  Mrs.  Finch 
sorrowfully.  "I  want  you  to  be  somebody,  Polly,  and 
take  your  right  place  in  the  world." 

But  Polly  answered  stoutly  that  she  was  n't  sure  it 
was  a  good  education  until  she  saw  whether  it  was  any 
use  to  her.  There  were  too  many  second-rate  teachers 
already,  and  she  had  n't  any  reason  to  suppose  she 
would  be  a  first-rate  one.  She  believed  that  people  had 
better  learn  to  do  the  things  they  were  sure  to  have 
to  do.  She  would  rather  be  a  boy,  and  farm  it,  than 
teach  any  school  she  ever  saw,  and  for  this  year,  at  any 
rate,  she  was  going  to  see  whether  her  book-learning 
was  n't  going  to  be  some  help  at  home.  "  I  did  the  best 
I  could  at  school,"  she  said,  "and  it  was  easy  enough 
to  get  my  lessons,  but  now  I've  come  against  a  dead- 
wall.  I  don't  see  but  you  both  need  me,  and  I  'm  well 
and  strong  as  anybody  alive.  I'd  a  good  deal  rather 
work  at  home  awhile  than  be  penned  up  with  a  lot  of 
children,  and  none  of  us  more  than  half  know  what 
we're  about.  I  want  to  think  a  good  deal  more  about 
teaching  school  before  I  begin  to  try  in  earnest." 

"I  shall  be  glad  to  have  you  help  your  mother,"  said 
John  Finch  disconsolately,  "and  we'll  manage  to  get 
along  somehow." 

"  Don't  be  afraid,  father,"  responded  Polly,  in  really 

310 


FARMER  FINCH 

cheerful  tones,  as  if  she  assumed  her  new  situation  for- 
mally at  that  moment.  She  went  slowly  down  cellar  with 
the  lamp,  leaving  her  parents  in  darkness;  but  by  this 
time  the  tea-kettle  had  begun  to  sing,  and  a  great  glow 
of  coals  showed  through  the  front  slide  of  the  stove. 

Mr.  Finch  lifted  himself  out  of  his  chair,  and  stum- 
bled about  to  get  the  lantern  and  light  it,  and  then  went 
out  to  feed  the  cattle.  He  still  looked  chilled,  and  as 
if  all  happiness  had  forsaken  him.  It  was  some  little 
time  before  he  returned,  and  the  table  was  already  set, 
and  supper  was  nearly  cooked  and  ready  to  be  eaten. 
Polly  had  made  a  pot  of  coffee,  and  drank  her  first 
cup  with  great  satisfaction,  and  almost  without  taking 
breath;  but  her  father  tasted  his  and  did  not  seem  to 
care  for  it,  eating  only  a  little  food  with  evident  effort. 

"  Now  I  thought  you  would  relish  a  good  cup  of  cof- 
fee," said  his  wife,  with  much  concern;  but  the  man 
answered  sadly  that  he  could  n't  eat;  he  felt  all  broken 
down. 

"  It  was  a  perishing  day  for  you  to  take  that  long  ride. 
It's  the  bleakest  road  round  here,  that  marsh  road  is, 
and  you  hardly  ate  a  mouthful  of  breakfast.  I  wish 
you  had  got  something  to  warm  you  up  before  you 
started  to  come  back,"  said  his  wife,  looking  at  him 
anxiously.  "  I  believe  I  '11  get  you  something  now,"  and 
she  went  to  find  a  treasured  bottle,  long  stored  away 
to  be  used  in  case  of  chill  or  illness,  for  John  Finch 
was  a  temperate  man. 

"I  declare  I  forgot  to  milk,"  he  said  hopelessly.  "I 
don't  know 's  such  a  thing  ever  happened  to  me  before. 
I  thought  there  was  something  else  when  I  was  out  to 

311 


MODERN  STORIES 

the  barn,  and  I  sat  down  on  the  grin'-stone  frame  and 
tried  to  think  what  it  was,  but  I  could  n't." 

"I'll  milk,"  said  Polly;  and  she  whisked  upstairs 
and  replaced  her  best  dress,  which  had  been  already 
turned  up  and  well  aproned,  by  a  worn  old  frock  which 
she  had  used  on  days  of  cleaning,  or  washing,  or  other 
rough  work,  when  she  had  lent  a  hand  to  help  her 
mother.  It  was  nothing  new  for  her,  a  farmer's  daughter 
born  and  bred,  to  undertake  this  work,  but  she  made 
a  distinct  change  of  direction  that  night,  and  as  she 
sat  milking  in  the  cold  barn  by  the  dull  light  of  the 
lantern  a  certain  pleasure  stole  over  her.  She  was  not 
without  her  ambitions,  but  they  had  never  flown  with 
free  wings  up  an  imaginary  career  of  school-teaching.  "  I 
do  believe  mother  and  I  can  earn  money  enough  to  take 
care  of  us,"  she  said  to  herself,  "and  next  spring  I'm 
going  to  set  out  as  much  land  as  father  will  let  me  have 
with  strawberries."  Her  thoughts  never  were  busier 
than  that  night.  The  two  cows  looked  round  at  her 
with  surprise,  and  seemed  to  value  her  good-natured 
words  and  hurried  pats  as  she  left  them.  She  disturbed 
a  sleepy  row  of  hens  perched  on  the  rail  of  the  hay- 
cart,  and  thought  it  was  a  pity  there  was  not  a  better 
place  for  them,  and  that  they  should  be  straying  about. 
"I'm  going  to  read  up  some  of  the  old  numbers  of 
the  'Agriculturist,'  "  she  said,  "and  see  what  I  can  do 
about  having  eggs  to  sell."  It  was  evident  that  Polly 
was  fired  with  a  great  enthusiasm,  but  she  remembered 
suddenly  another  new  great  interest  which  was  a  secret 
as  yet  even  from  her  mother.  This  remembrance  gave 
her  a  little  uneasiness. 

312 


FARMER  FINCH 

It  was  still  early  when  the  supper  table  had  been 
cleared  away,  and  the  milk  strained  and  set  aside  in 
the  pantry.  John  Finch  had  drawn  his  chair  close  to 
the  stove,  and  when  his  wife  and  daughter  sat  down 
also,  ready  to  begin  the  evening  which  showed  so  little 
promise  of  hilarity,  they  saw  that  he  was  crying. 

"Why,  father!"  Polly  exclaimed,  half  frightened,  for 
this  was  something  she  did  not  remember  ever  see- 
ing since  she  was  a  child.  And  his  wife  said  nothing, 
but  came  and  stood  beside  him  and  watched  him  as  if 
the  vague  sense  of  coming  trouble  which  had  haunted 
her  all  day  was  going  to  explain  itself  by  some  terrible 
crisis. 

"I'm  all  broken  down,"  the  poor  man  sobbed.  "I 
used  to  think  I  was  going  to  be  somebody,  and  get  ahead, 
and  nothing  has  gone  as  I  wanted  it  to.  I  'm  in  debt 
more  than  you  think,  and  I  don't  know  which  way  to 
look.  The  farm  don't  yield  me  as  it  used  to,  and  I 
don't  grudge  what  we  've  done  for  the  girl,  but  it 's  been 
all  we  could  carry,  and  here  she 's  failed  of  getting  a 
place  to  teach.    Everything  seems  to  go  against  us." 

This  was  really  most  sad  and  death-like;  it  truly 
seemed  as  if  the  wheels  of  existence  had  stopped;  there 
seemed  to  be  nothing  to  follow  this  unhappy  day  but 
disgrace  and  despair.  But  Polly  was  the  first  to  speak, 
and  her  cheeks  grew  very  red:  "Father,  I  don't  think 
you  have  any  right  to  speak  so.  If  we  can't  make  our 
living  one  way,  we  will  another.  Losing  that  money  in 
the  bank  is  n't  the  worst  thing  that  could  have  hap- 
pened to  us,  and  now  I  am  going  to  take  hold  with 
you  right  here  at  home,  as  I  said  before  supper.  You 

313 


MODERN  STORIES 

think  there  is  n't  much  that  a  woman  can  do,  but  we  '11 
see.   How  much  do  you  owe  ?  "  « 

But  John  Finch  shook  his  head  sadly,  and  at  first  re- 
fused to  tell.  "  It  would  have  been  nothing  if  I  had  had 
my  bonds  to  help  me  out,"  he  finally  confessed,  "  but  now 
I  don't  see  how  I  ever  can  pay  three  hundred  dollars." 

In  a  little  while  he  rose  wearily,  though  it  was  only 
a  little  past  six,  and  said  that  he  must  go  to  bed,  and 
his  wife  followed  him  to  his  room  as  if  he  were  a  child. 
This  breaking  down  was  truly  a  most  painful  and  fright- 
ful thing,  and  Polly  was  not  surprised  to  be  wakened 
from  her  uneasy  sleep  a  few  hours  later,  for  she  had 
worried  and  lain  awake  in  a  way  that  rarely  happened, 
fearing  that  her  father  would  be  ill,  and  wondering  what 
plans  it  would  be  best  to  make  for  his  assistance  in  the 
coming  year.  She  believed  that  they  could  do  much 
better  with  the  farm,  and  she  made  up  her  mind  to  be 
son  and  daughter  both. 

Later  Mrs.  Finch  called  her,  hurriedly  coming  halfway 
up  the  staircase  with  a  light.  "Your  father  is  sick," 
she  said  anxiously.  "I  don't  know  whether  it  is  more 
than  a  chill,  but  he 's  in  great  pain,  and  I  wish  we  could 
get  the  doctor.  Can't  you  wrap  up  warm  and  go  over 
to  Minton's  and  see  if  they  can't  send  somebody  ?  " 

"There's  nobody  there,"  said  Polly;  "the  boys  are 
both  away.  I  '11  go  myself,  and  get  back  before  you  begin 
to  miss  me;"  and  she  was  already  dressing  as  fast  as 
she  could.  In  that  quiet  neighborhood  she  had  no 
thought  of  fear;  it  was  not  like  Polly  to  be  afraid,  at 
any  rate ;  and  after  a  few  words  to  her  father,  and  mak- 
ing a  bright  fire  in  the  little  fireplace  of  the  bedroom, 

314 


FARMER  FINCH 

she  put  on  her  warm  old  hood  and  mittens,  and  her 
mother's  great  plaid  shawl,  and  scurried  away  up  the 
road.  It  was  a  mile  and  a  half  to  the  doctor's  house, 
and  with  every  step  she  grew  more  eager  to  reach  it. 
The  clouds  had  broken  away  somewhat,  and  the  stars' 
bright  rays  came  darting  like  glistening  needles  at  one's 
eyes,  so  keen  and  piercing  they  were.  The  wind  had 
gone  down,  and  a  heavy  coldness  had  fallen  upon  the 
earth,  as  if  the  air,  like  water,  had  frozen  and  become 
denser  It  seemed  another  world  altogether,  and  the 
old  dog,  that  had  left  his  snug  corner  behind  the 
kitchen  stove  to  follow  Polly,  kept  close  at  her  side,  as 
if  he  lacked  his  usual  courage.  On  the  ridges  the  cedar 
trees  stood  up  thinner  and  blacker  than  ever;  the 
northern  lights  were  making  the  sky  white  and  strange 
with  their  mysterious  light.  Polly  ran  and  walked  by 
turns,  feeling  warmed  and  quickened  by  the  exercise. 
She  was  not  averse  to  the  long  walk  at  that  time  of 
night ;  she  had  a  comfortable  sense  of  the  strong  young 
life  that  was  he«s  to  use  and  command. 

Suddenly  she  heard  the  sound  of  other  footsteps  be- 
sides her  own  on  the  frozen  ground,  and  stopped,  feel- 
ing for  the  first  time  anything  like  fear.  Her  first 
impulse  was  to  hide,  but  the  road  was  wide  and  unshel- 
tered, and  there  was  nothing  to  do  but  to  go  on.  She 
thought  next  that  it  might  be  somebody  whom  she 
could  send  the  rest  of  the  way,  and  in  another  minute 
she  heard  a  familiar  whistle,  and  called  out,  not  without 
relief,  "  Is  that  you,  Jerry  ? " 

The  figure  stopped,  and  answered  nothing,  and  Polly 
hurried  nearer,  and  spoke  again. 

315 


MODERN  STORIES 

"For  Heaven's  sake,  what  sends  you  out  this  time 
o'  night?"  asked  the  young  man,  almost  impatiently; 
and  Polly  in  her  turn  became  a  little  angry  with  him, 
she  could  not  have  told  why. 

"I'm  not  out  for  pleasure,"  she  answered,  with  some 
spirit.  "Father  is  taken  very  sick;  we  are  afraid  it  is 
pneumonia ;  and  I  'm  going  for  the  doctor.  There  was 
nobody  to  send." 

"I  was  coming  up  from  Portsmouth  to-day,"  said 
the  young  man,  "  and  I  lost  the  last  train,  so  I  came  on 
a  freight  train  with  some  fellows  I  know,  and  I  thought 
I  'd  foot  it  over  from  the  depot.  We  were  delayed  a  good 
while  or  it  would  n't  have  been  so  late.  There  was  a 
car  off  the  track  at  Beverly." 

He  had  turned,  and  was  walking  beside  Polly,  who 
wondered  that  he  had  not  sense  enough  to  offer  to  call 
the  doctor  for  her.  She  did  not  like  his  gallantry,  and 
was  in  no  mood  for  friendliness.  She  noticed  that  he 
had  been  drinking,  but  he  seemed  perfectly  sober;  it 
was  between  Jerry  Minton  and  herself  that  something 
almost  like  love-making  had  showed  itself  not  long 
before,  but  somehow  any  tenderness  she  had  suspected 
herself  of  cherishing  for  him  had  suddenly  vanished 
from  her  heart  and  mind. 

"I  was  all  knocked  of  a  heap  in  Salem  this  morning 
to  hear  that  the  bank  had  failed.  Our  folks  will  lose 
something,  but  I  suppose  it'll  about  ruin  your  father. 
Seems  to  affect  him  a  good  deal,  don't  it  ? " 

"  It  has  n't  quite  ruined  us,"  said  Polly  angrily,  and 
walked  faster  and  faster. 

"  I  've  been  turning  it  over  in  my  mind  to-day  a  good 

316 


FARMER  FINCH 

deal,"  said  Jerry.  "I  hope  you  will  call  on  me  for  any- 
thing I  can  do,  'specially  now  your  father 's  going  to  be 
laid  up." 

"Thank  you,"  said  Polly  stiffly;  and  presently  she 
stopped  in  the  road,  and  turned  and  looked  at  him  in 
a  sharp  and  not  very  admiring  way. 

"You  might  as  well  go  home,"  she  told  him,  not  un- 
kindly. "  I  Ve  got  to  the  village  now,  and  I  shall  ride 
home  with  the  doctor;  there 's  no  need  for  you  to  come 
back  out  of  your  way."  And  Jerry,  after  a  feeble  re- 
monstrance, obeyed. 

The  doctor  was  used  to  being  summoned  at  such 
hours,  and  when  he  found  it  was  Polly  Finch  he  dressed 
hurriedly,  and  came  down,  brimful  of  kindness  and 
sympathy,  to  let  her  in. 

He  listened  almost  in  silence  to  what  Polly  had  to 
say  of  the  case,  and  then,  taking  a  bottle  here  and  there 
from  his  stores  in  the  little  room  that  served  him  as  his 
office,  he  fastened  his  greatcoat,  and  pulled  down  the 
fur  cap  that  had  been  a  valiant  helmet  against  the  blows 
of  many  winter  storms,  and  they  went  out  together  to 
the  stable.  The  doctor  was  an  elderly  man  and  lame, 
and  he  was  delighted  with  the  brisk  way  in  which  his 
young  companion  stepped  forward  and  helped  him. 
The  lantern  that  hung  in  the  warm  little  stable  was 
not  very  bright,  but  she  quickly  found  her  way  about, 
and  the  horse  was  soon  harnessed.  She  found  that  the 
harness  needed  tightening,  the  doctor  having  used  it  that 
day  for  another  carriage,  and  as  he  saw  her  try  it  and 
rebuckle  it,  he  felt  a  warm  glow  of  admiration,  and  said 
to  himself  that  not  one  woman  in  a  hundred  would  have 

317 


MODERN  STORIES 

done  such  a  thing.  They  wrapped  themselves  in  the 
heavy  blankets  and  buffalo-skins,  and  set  forth,  the 
doctor  saying  that  they  could  not  go  much  faster  than 
a  walk. 

He  was  still  a  little  sleepy,  and  Polly  did  not  have  much 
to  say  at  first,  except  in  answer  to  one  or  two  ques- 
tions which  he  asked  about  her  father's  condition;  but 
at  last  she  told  him  of  her  own  accord  of  the  troubles 
that  had  fallen  upon  them  that  day.  It  already  seemed 
a  week  to  her  since  the  morning;  she  felt  as  if  she  had 
grown  years  older  instead  of  hours. 

"Your  father  has  a  bad  trouble  about  the  heart," 
said  the  doctor  hesitatingly.  "  I  think  it  is  just  as  well 
you  should  know  it,  and  if  this  is  pneumonia,  it  may 
go  very  hard  with  him.  And  if  he  pulls  through,  as  I 
hope  he  will  if  we  catch  him  in  time,  you  must  see  to  it 
that  he  is  very  careful  all  the  rest  of  the  winter,  and 
does  n't  expose  himself  in  bad  weather.  He  must  n't 
go  into  the  woods  chopping,  or  anything  of  that  sort." 

"I'm  much  obliged  to  you  for  telling  me,"  said 
Polly  bravely.  "  I  have  made  up  my  mind  to  stay  right 
at  home.  I  was  in  hopes  to  get  a  school,  but  I  could  n't 
do  it,  and  now  I  can  see  it  was  meant  that  I  should  n't, 
for  mother  could  n't  get  along  without  me  if  father's 
going  to  be  sick.  I  keep  wishing  I  had  been  a  boy,"  — 
and  she  gave  a  shaky  little  laugh  that  had  a  very  sad 
tone  in  it,  —  "  for  it  seems  as  if  father  needed  my  help 
on  the  farm  more  than  mother  does  in  the  house,  and 
I  don't  see  why  he  should  n't  have  it,"  she  confessed, 
filled  with  the  courage  of  her  new  opinion.  "I  believe 
that  it  is  the  only  thing  for  me  to  do.    I  always  had  a 

318 


FARMER  FINCH 

great  knack  at  making  things  grow,  and  I  never  should 
be  so  happy  anywhere  as  working  out-doors  and  hand- 
ling a  piece  of  land.  I'd  rather  work  with  a  hoe  than 
a  ferule  any  day,"  and  she  gave  the  queer  little  laugh 
again.  Nobody  would  have  suspected  she  found  it  so 
hard  to  bear  the  doctor's  bad  news. 

"  But  what  is  it  you  mean  to  do  ?  "  asked  the  doctor, 
in  a  most  respectful  tone,  though  he  was  inwardly  much 
amused. 

Polly  hesitated.  "  I  have  been  thinking  that  we  might 
raise  a  good  many  more  early  vegetables,  and  ever  so 
much  more  poultry.  Some  of  our  land  is  so  sheltered 
that  it  is  very  early,  you  know,  and  it's  first-rate  light 
loam.  We  always  get  peas  and  potatoes  and  beans  long 
before  the  Mintons  and  the  rest  of  the  people  down 
our  way,  and  there's  no  trouble  about  a  market." 

"But  you'll  have  to  hire  help,"  the  doctor  suggested. 

And  Polly  answered  that  she  had  thought  of  that, 
but  she  knew  she  could  manage  somehow.  "  It 's  a  new 
thing,  you  see,  doctor,"  she  said,  much  encouraged  by 
his  evident  interest,  "but  I  mean  to  work  my  way 
through  it.  Father  has  sold  wood  and  sold  hay,  and  if 
we  had  too  much  butter  or  too  many  eggs,  and  more 
early  potatoes  than  we  wanted,  he  would  sell  those; 
but  it  seemed  as  if  the  farm  was  there  only  to  feed  us, 
and  now  I  believe  I  can  make  it  feed  a  good  many 
other  people  besides;  and  we  must  get  money  somehow. 
People  let  girls  younger  than  I  get  married,  and  nobody 
thinks  it  is  any  risk  to  let  them  try  housekeeping.  I  'm 
going  to  try  farmkeeping." 

The  old  doctor  laughed.    "You've  got  a  wise  head 

319 


MODERN  STORIES 

for  such  a  young  one,"  he  said,  "  and  now  I  '11  help  you 
every  way  I  can.  I  'm  not  a  rich  man,  but  I  'm  comfort- 
ably off  for  a  country  doctor,  and  I  Ve  got  more  money 
put  away  than  I  am  likely  to  use;  so,  if  you  fall  short 
at  any  time,  you  just  come  and  tell  me,  and  nobody 
shall  know  anything  about  it,  and  you  can  take  your 
own  time  to  pay  it  back.  I  know  more  about  doctor- 
ing than  I  do  about  farming,  or  I  'd  give  you  plenty  of 
advice.    But  you  go  ahead,  Polly." 

Polly  nestled  down  into  the  buffaloes,  feeling  already 
that  she  had  become  a  business  woman.  The  old  wagon 
bumped  and  shook  as  they  went  along,  and  in  the  dim 
light  Polly  caught  sight  of  the  barberry  bush,  —  only 
a  darker  shadow  on  the  high  bank  at  the  side  of  the 
road,  —  and  she  thought  of  it  affectionately  as  if  it  were 
a  friend.  Young  Minton,  whom  they  overtook  at  last, 
called  out  loudly  some  good  wish  that  they  might  find 
Mr.  Finch  better,  and  the  doctor  asked  sharply  who 
he  was,  as  they  drove  by.  Polly  told  him,  not  without 
a  feeling  of  embarrassment,  which  was  very  provoking 
to  her. 

"  I  must  say  I  never  liked  that  tribe,"  said  the  doctor 
hastily.    "I  always  hate  to  have  them  send  for  me." 

When  they  reached  the  farm,  Polly  urged  the  doctor 
to  go  into  the  house  at  once.  There  was  a  bright  light 
in  the  kitchen  and  in  the  bedroom  that  opened  out  of 
it,  and  the  girl  was  almost  afraid  to  go  in  after  she  had 
led  the  horse  into  the  barn  and  covered  him  with  the 
blanket.  The  old  sorrel  was  within  easy  reach  of  the 
overhanging  edge  of  the  haymow,  and  she  left  him 
munching  comfortably.    As  she  opened  the  inner  door 

320 


FARMER  FINCH 

of  the  kitchen  she  heard  her  father's  voice,  weak  and 
sharp,  and  the  doctor  speaking  in  assuring  tones  with 
hearty  strength,  but  the  contrast  of  the  two  voices 
sounded  very  sad  to  Polly.  It  seemed  to  her  as  if  she 
had  been  gone  a  great  while,  and  she  feared  to  look  at 
her  father  lest  he  might  have  changed  sadly.  As  she 
came  to  the  bedroom  door,  the  sight  of  her  rosy-cheeked 
and  eager,  sorry  face  seemed  to  please  him,  and  his  own 
face  brightened. 

"You're  a  good  girl,  Polly,"  said  he.  "I'm  sorry 
you  had  such  a  bad  time."  He  looked  very  ill  already, 
and  Polly  could  not  say  anything  in  answer.  She  re- 
built the  fire,  and  then  went  to  stand  by  the  table,  as 
she  used  when  she  was  a  little  child,  to  see  the  doctor 
take  out  his  doses  of  medicine. 

Very  early  in  the  morning  Jerry  Minton's  mother 
came  knocking  at  the  door,  which  Polly  had  locked 
after  the  doctor  had  gone  away  in  the  night.  She  had 
pushed  the  bolt  with  unwonted  care,  as  if  she  wished 
to  bar  the  entrance  to  any  further  trouble  that  might 
be  lying  in  wait  for  them  outside.  Mrs.  Minton  was 
ready  with  her  expressions  of  sympathy,  but  somehow 
Polly  wished  she  would  go  away.  She  took  a  look  at 
the  sick  man,  who  was  sleeping  after  the  suffering  and 
wakefulness  of  the  night,  and  shook  her  head  ominously, 
for  which  Polly  could  have  struck  her.  She  was  an  un- 
pleasant, croaking  sort  of  woman,  and  carried  in  her 
whole  manner  a  consciousness  of  the  altered  fortunes 
of  the  Finches;  and  she  even  condoled  with  Polly  on 
her  disappointment  about  the  school. 

"Jerry  spoke  about  meeting  you  going  for  the  doc- 

321 


MODERN  STORIES 

tor,"  she  said,  in  conclusion.  "  I  told  him  I  did  n't  know 
what  you  would  think  about  catching  him  out  so  late 
at  night;  but  he  was  to  Portsmouth,  and  mistook  the 
time  of  the  train.  I've  been  joking  him  for  some  time 
past.  I've  about  made  up  my  mind  there's  some  at- 
traction to  Portsmouth.  He  was  terrible  took  with  that 
Miss  Hallett  who  was  stopping  to  the  minister's  in  the 
summer." 

This  was  more  than  Polly  could  bear,  for  it  was  only 
a  short  time  since  Mrs.  Minton  had  been  paying  her 
great  attention,  and  wishing  that  she  and  Jerry  would 
make  a  match  of  it,  as  the  farms  joined,  and  the  farm- 
work  was  growing  too  heavy  for  her  as  she  became 
older. 

"If  you  mean  Mary  Hallett,  she  was  married  in 
September  to  a  young  man  in  Boston,  partner  in  a  com- 
mission firm,"  said  Polly;  and  Mrs.  Minton,  for  that 
time  at  any  rate,  was  routed  horse  and  foot. 

"  I  hate  that  woman ! "  she  said  angrily,  as  she  shut 
the  door,  not  very  gently,  after  her. 

It  was  a  long,  hard  illness  that  followed,  and  the 
younger  and  the  elder  Mary  Finch  were  both  tired  and 
worn  out  before  it  ended  in  a  slow  convalescence  that 
in  its  dangers  and  troubles  was  almost  as  bad  as  the  ill- 
ness itself.  The  doctor  was  most  kind  and  helpful  in 
other  ways  than  with  his  medicines.  It  was  a  most 
cheerful  and  kindly  presence,  and  more  than  once  Polly 
drove  back  to  the  village  with  him,  or  went  with  her 
own  horse  to  bring  him  to  the  farm,  and  they  became 
fast  friends.  The  girl  knew  without  being  told  that  it 
would  be  a  long  time  before  her  father  would  grow  strong 

322 


FARMER  FINCH 

again,  if  that  time  ever  came  at  all.  They  had  got  on 
very  well  without  help,  she  and  her  mother.  Some  of 
the  neighbors  had  offered  their  services  in-doors  and 
out,  but  these  latter  offers  were  only  occasionally 
accepted. 

The  oxen  had  been  hired  by  a  man  who  was  hauling 
salt  hay  to  town,  and  Polly  had  taken  care  of  the  horse 
and  the  two  cows.  She  had  split  the  firewood  and 
brought  it  in,  and  had  done  what  little  rough  work  had 
to  be  attended  to  in  these  weeks,  in  spite  of  her  mother's 
unwillingness.  To  tell  the  truth,  she  enjoyed  it  after 
the  heat  and  stillness  of  the  house,  and  when  she  could 
take  the  time  to  run  out  for  a  little  while,  it  was  always 
to  take  a  look  at  some  part  of  the  farm;  and  though 
many  of  her  projects  proved  to  be  castles  in  the  air,  she 
found  almost  her  only  pleasure  in  these  sad  winter  days 
in  building  them  and  thinking  them  over. 

Before  her  father's  illness  she  would  have  turned  most 
naturally  to  Jerry  Minton  for  help  and  sympathy,  for  he 
had  made  himself  very  kind  and  pleasant  to  her  then, 
Polly  had  been  thought  a  good  match,  since  she  was 
an  only  child,  and  it  was  everywhere  known  that  John 
Finch  and  his  wife  had  both  inherited  money.  Besides, 
it  gave  the  more  dignity  to  her  position  that  she  had 
been  so  long  away  at  school,  and  such  good  accounts 
of  her  standing  there  had  reached  her  native  place;  and 
Polly  was  uncommonly  good-looking,  if  the  truth  must 
be  told,  which  Jerry  Minton's  eyes  had  been  quick  to 
notice.  Though  it  was  known  at  once  through  the  town 
what  a  plight  the  Finches'  affairs  were  in,  Jerry  had 
come  at  first,  apparently  unconscious  of  his  mother's 

323 


MODERN  STORIES 

withdrawal  of  his  attentions,  with  great  show  of  sym- 
pathy and  friendliness,  to  offer  to  watch  with  the  sick 
man  by  night,  or  to  be  of  any  use  by  day,  and  he  had 
been  much  mortified  and  surprised  at  Polly's  unmis- 
takable repulse.  Her  quick  instinct  had  detected  an 
assumption  of  condescension  and  patronage  on  his  part 
as  well  as  his  mother's,  and  the  growing  fondness  which 
she  had  felt  earlier  in  that  season  turned  to  a  dislike 
that  grew  much  faster  in  the  winter  days.  Her  mother 
noticed  the  change  in  her  manner,  and  one  night  as 
they  sat  together  in  the  kitchen  Mrs.  Finch  whispered 
a  gentle  warning  to  her  daughter.  "  I  thought  one  time 
that  there  might  be  something  between  you  and  Jerry," 
she  said.  "  I  hope  you  won't  let  your  duty  to  your  fa- 
ther and  me  stand  in  the  way  of  your  settling  yourself 
comfortably.  I  should  n't  like  to  think  we  were  going 
to  leave  you  alone.  A  woman  's  better  to  have  a  home 
of  her  own." 

Polly  turned  so  red  that  her  mother  could  see  the 
color  even  in  the  dim  light  by  which  they  watched. 

"  Don't  you  worry  about  me,"  said  the  girl.  "  This 
is  my  home,  and  I  would  n't  marry  Jerry  Minton  if  hb 
were  the  President." 

That  was  a  black  and  snowless  winter  until  late  in 
January.  There,  near  the  sea,  such  seasons  are  not  so 
uncommon  as  they  are  farther  inland;  but  the  desola- 
tion of  the  landscape  struck  Polly  Finch  all  the  more 
forcibly  since  it  was  answered  to  by  the  anxiety  and 
trouble  that  had  fallen  into  her  life.  She  had  not  been 
at  home  in  midwinter  for  several  years  before,  and  in 
those  earlier  days  she  had  never  noticed  the  outward 

3U 


FARMER  FINCH 

world  as  she  had  learned  to  do  as  she  grew  older.  The 
farm  was  a  pleasant  group  of  fields  in  summer,  lying 
among  the  low  hills  that  kept  away  both  the  winds  from 
the  sea  and  the  still  keener  and  bitterer  northwest  wind. 
Yet  the  plain,  warm,  story-and-a-half  house,  with  its 
square  front  yard,  with  lilac  and  rose  bushes,  and  the 
open  side  yard  with  its  close  green  turf,  and  the  barns 
and  outbuildings  beyond,  was  only  a  little  way  from 
the  marshes.  From  Polly's  own  upper  window  there 
was  an  outlook  that  way  over  a  low  slope  of  one  of 
the  pasture  hills,  and  sometimes  when  she  felt  tired  and 
dreary,  and  looked  out  there,  it  seemed  to  her  as  if  the 
half-dozen  black  cedars  were  standing  there  watching 
the  house,  and  waiting  for  a  still  greater  sorrow  and 
evil  fortune  to  go  in  at  the  door.  Our  heroine's  life  was 
not  a  little  lonely,  and  it  would  have  been  much  worse 
if  she  had  not  been  so  busy  and  so  full  of  care.  She 
missed  the  girls  who  had  been  her  companions  at  school ; 
and  from  having  her  duties  marked  out  for  her  by  her 
teachers,  and  nothing  to  do  but  to  follow  set  tasks,  and 
do  certain  things  at  certain  hours,  it  was  a  great  change 
to  being  her  own  mistress,  charged  with  not  only  her 
own  but  other  people's  welfare. 

The  women  from  the  few  neighboring  houses  wha 
came  in  to  pay  friendly  visits,  or  to  help  with  the  house- 
work, said  very  good  things  about  Polly  afterward.  It 
had  been  expected  that  she  would  put  on  at  least  a  few 
fine  airs;  but  she  was  so  dutiful,  and  worked  so  hard 
and  so  sensibly,  and  with  such  manifest  willingness  and 
interest,  that  no  one  could  help  praising  her.  A  very 
old  neighbor,  who  was  still  mindful  of  the  proprieties 

325 


MODERN  STORIES 

of  life,  though  she  had  become  too  feeble  to  be  of  much 
practical  use  in  the  event  of  a  friend's  illness,  came 
one  afternoon  to  pay  a  visit.  She  was  terribly  fatigued 
after  the  walk  which  had  been  so  long  for  her,  and 
Polly  waited  upon  her  kindly,  and  brought  her  some 
refreshments,  all  in  the  middle  of  one  of  her  busiest 
afternoons.  Poor  old  Mrs.  Wall!  she  made  her  little 
call  upon  the  sick  man,  who  was  almost  too  weak  to 
even  show  his  gratitude  that  she  had  made  so  great 
an  effort  to  keep  up  the  friendly  custom,  and  after  say- 
ing sadly  that  she  used  to  be  a  great  hand  to  tend 
the  sick,  but  her  day  was  over,  she  returned  to  the 
kitchen,  when  Polly  drew  the  big  rocking-chair  to  the 
warmest  corner,  and  entertained  her  to  the  best  of  her 
power.  The  old  woman's  eye  fell  upon  a  great  pile  of 
newspapers. 

"I  suppose  you  are  a  great  hand  to  read,  after  all 
your  schooling  ?  "  and  Polly  answered  that  she  did  like 
to  read  very  much,  and  added :  "  Those  are  old  numbers 
of  the  'Agriculturist.'  Father  has  taken  it  a  good  many 
years,  and  I  've  taken  to  studying  farming." 

Mrs.  Wall  noticed  the  little  blush  that  followed  this 
announcement,  and  did  not  question  its  seriousness 
and  truthfulness. 

"I'm  going  to  help  father  carry  on  the  farm,"  said 
Polly  suddenly,  fearing  that  her  guest  might  think  she 
meant  to  marry,  and  only  take  the  in-door  part  of  the 
farm's  business. 

"Well,  two  heads  are  better  than  one,"  said  the  old 
lady,  after  a  minute's  reflection;  "only  an  old  horse 
and  a  young  one  don't  always  pull  well  together.    But 

326 


FARMER  FINCH 

I  can  see,  if  my  eyes  are  n't  what  they  used  to  be,  that 
you  are  a  good  smart  girl,  with  some  snap  to  ye.  I  guess 
you've  got  power  enough  to  turn  'most  any  kind  of  a 
mill.  There  was  my  own  first  cousin,  Serena  Allen,  her 
husband  was  killed  in  the  last  war,  and  she  was  left 
with  two  children  when  she  was  n't  a  great  deal  older 
than  you  be,  and  she  run  the  farm,  and  lived  well,  and 
laid  up  a  handsome  property.  She  was  some  years  older 
than  I,  but  she  has  n't  been  dead  a  great  many  years. 
She'd  plow  a  piece  of  ground  as  well  as  a  man.  They 
used  to  call  her  Farmer  Allen.  She  was  as  nice  a  woman 
as  I  ever  knew." 

Polly  laughed  more  heartily  than  she  had  for  a  good 
while,  and  it  did  her  father  good  to  hear  her;  but  later, 
when  the  visitor  had  gone,  in  spite  of  Polly's  offer  to 
drive  her  home  a  little  later  when  another  neighbor 
returned  the  horse,  our  friend  watched  her  go  away 
with  feeble  steps,  a  bent,  decrepit  figure,  almost  worn 
out  with  spending  so  many  years  in  a  world  of  hard 
work.  She  might  have  stood  for  a  picture  of  old  age, 
and  Polly  felt  it  as  she  stood  at  the  window.  It  had 
never  come  home  to  her  thoroughly  before,  the  inevita- 
bleness  of  growing  old,  and  of  the  limitation  of  this 
present  life;  how  soon  the  body  loses  its  power,  and 
the  strength  of  the  mind  wanes  with  it.  All  that  old 
Mrs.  Wall  could  do  in  this  world  was  done,  and  her 
account  was  virtually  closed.  "Here  I  am  just  starting 
out,"  said  unlucky  John  Finch's  only  daughter.  "I 
did  think  I  might  be  going  to  have  a  great  career  some- 
times when  I  was  at  school,  and  here  I  am  settling 
down  just  like  everybody  else,  and  only  one   wave, 

327 


MODERN  STORIES 

after  all,  instead  of  being  a  whole  tide.  And  it  is  n't 
going  to  be  a  great  while  before  I  have  as  hard  work  to 
get  up  that  little  hill  as  old  Mrs.  Wall.  But  I  'm  going 
to  beat  even  her  cousin,  Serena  Allen.  I  am  going  to 
be  renowned  as  Farmer  Finch." 

Polly  found  it  very  hard  to  wait  until  it  should  be 
time  to  make  her  garden  and  plant  it,  and  every  day 
made  her  more  impatient,  while  she  plied  her  father 
with  questions,  and  asked  his  opinion  so  many  times 
as  to  the  merits  of  different  crops  that  he  was  tired  of 
the  subject  altogether.  Through  many  seasons  he  had 
tried  these  same  experiments,  with  not  very  great  suc- 
cess, and  he  could  not  imagine  the  keen  interest  and 
enthusiasm  with  which  Polly's  soul  was  fired.  She  had 
never  known  such  a  late  spring,  and  the  scurries  of 
snow  in  March  and  early  April  filled  her  with  dismay, 
as  if  each  had  blighted  and  frost-bitten  her  whole  har- 
vest. The  day  the  garden  was  plowed  was  warm  and 
spring-like,  and  John  Finch  crept  out  slowly,  with  his 
stick  held  fast  in  a  pale  and  withered-looking  hand,  to 
see  the  work  go  on.  He  groaned  when  he  saw  what  a 
great  piece  of  ground  was  marked  out  by  the  long  first 
furrows,  and  felt  a  new  sense  of  his  defeated  and  weak 
condition.  He  began  to  protest  angrily  at  what  he  be- 
lieved to  be  his  daughter's  imprudent  nonsense,  but  the 
thought  struck  him  that  Polly  might  know  what  she 
was  about  better  than  he  did,  and  he  fell  back  con- 
tentedly upon  his  confidence  in  her,  and  leaned  on  the 
fence  in  the  sun,  feeling  very  grateful  that  somebody 
else  had  taken  things  in  charge,  he  was  so  dull  and  un- 
equal to  making  any  effort.     "  Polly 's  got  power,"  he 

328 


FARMER  FINCH 

told  himself  several  times  that  day,  with  great  pride 
and  satisfaction. 

As  the  summer  went  on,  and  early  potatoes  from  the 
Finch  farm  were  first  in  the  market,  though  everybody 
who  saw  them  planted  had  believed  they  would  freeze 
and  never  grow,  and  the  other  crops  had  sometimes 
failed,  but  for  the  most  part  flourished  famously,  Polly 
began  to  attract  a  good  deal  of  attention,  for  she  mani- 
fested uncommon  shrewdness  and  business  talent,  and 
her  enterprise,  held  in  check  by  her  father's  experience, 
wrought  wonders  in  the  garden  and  fields.  Over  and 
over  John  Finch  said  admiringly,  to  his  wife,  "How 
Polly  does  take  hold  of  things ! "  and  while  he  was  quick 
to  see  the  objections  to  her  plans,  and  had  failed  in  his 
own  life  affairs  because  he  was  afraid  to  take  risk,  he 
was  easily  persuaded  into  thinking  it  was  worth  while 
to  do  the  old  work  in  new  ways.  It  was  lucky  that  Polly 
had  a  grand  capital  of  strength  to  live  upon,  for  she 
gave  herself  little  rest  all  summer  long ;  she  was  up  early 
every  morning  and  hard  at  work,  and  only  wished  that 
the  days  were  twice  as  long.  She  minded  neither  heat 
nor  rain,  and  having  seen  her  way  clear  to  employ  a 
strong  country  boy  whom  the  doctor  had  met  in  his 
rounds  and  recommended,  she  took  care  of  the  great 
garden  with  his  help;  and  when  she  had  occasion  to  do 
battle  with  the  market-men  who  came  foraging  that 
way,  she  came  off  victorious  in  the  matter  of  fair  prices. 

Now  that  so  much  has  been  said  about  the  days  and 
the  thoughts  that  led  to  the  carrying  out  of  so  bold  a 
scheme,  it  is  a  pity  there  is  not  time  enough  to  give  a 
history  of  the  struggles  and  successes  of  that  first  sum- 

329 


MODERN   STORIES 

mer.  There  never  was  a  young  man  just  "out  of  his 
time"  and  rejoicing  in  his  freedom,  who  went  to  work 
more  diligently  and  eagerly  than  Polly  Finch,  and  few 
have  set  their  wits  at  work  on  a  New  England  farm 
half  so  intelligently.  She  managed  a  great  flock  of  poul- 
try with  admirable  skill.  Her  geese  walked  in  a  stately 
procession  all  that  summer  to  and  from  their  pleasure- 
ground  at  the  edge  of  the  marsh,  and  not  a  hen  that 
stole  her  nest  but  was  tracked  to  earth  like  a  fox  and 
cooped  triumphantly.  She  tinkered  the  rickety  bee- 
hives that  stood  in  a  long  and  unremunerative  row  in 
the  garden  until  the  bees  became  good  housekeepers 
and  excellent  providers  for  very  shame.  She  gathered 
more  than  one  of  the  swarms  herself  without  a  sting, 
and  by  infinite  diligence  she  waged  war  successfully  on 
the  currant  worms,  with  the  result  that  she  had  a  great 
crop  of  currants  when  everybody  else's  came  to  grief. 
She  wondered  why  the  butter  that  she  and  her  mother 
made  brought  only  a  third-rate  price,  and  bought  a 
pound  of  the  very  best  for  a  pattern,  and  afterward 
was  sparing  of  salt,  and  careful  to  churn  while  the 
cream  was  sweet  and  fresh.  She  sold  the  oxen,  and 
bought  another  horse  instead  for  the  lighter  team,  which 
would  serve  her  purpose  better;  and  every  morning, 
after  the  crops  began  to  yield,  a  wagon-load  of  some- 
thing or  other  went  from  the  farm  to  market. 

She  was  as  happy  as  a  queen,  and  as  well  and  strong 
as  girls  ought  to  be;  and  though  some  people  laughed 
a  good  deal,  and  thought  she  ought  to  be  ashamed  to 
work  on  the  farm  like  a  man,  they  were  forced  to  like 
her  all  the  better  when  they  saw  her;  and  when  she  came 

330 


FARMER  FINCH 

into  church  on  Sunday,  nobody  could  have  said  that 
she  had  become  unwomanly  and  rough.  Her  hands 
grew  to  need  a  larger  pair  of  gloves  than  she  was  used 
to  wearing,  but  that  did  not  trouble  her;  and  she  liked 
a  story-book,  or  a  book  with  more  lessons  in  it  still, 
better  than  ever  she  had.  Two  girls  who  had  been  her 
best  friends  at  school  came  in  the  course  of  the  summer 
to  visit  her,  and  were  asked  out  into  the  garden,  after 
the  early  breakfast,  because  she  must  weed  the  beets, 
and  after  sitting  still  for  a  while  on  a  garden  bench* 
they  began  to  help  her,  and  both  got  headaches ;  but  at 
the  end  of  the  week,  having  caught  the  spirit  and  some- 
thing of  the  enjoyment  of  her  life,  they  would  have  been 
glad  to  spend  the  rest  of  the  summer  with  her.  There 
is  something  delightful  in  keeping  so  close  to  growing 
things,  and  one  gets  a  great  sympathy  with  the  life  that 
is  in  nature,  with  the  flourishing  of  some  plants  and 
the  hindered  life  of  others,  with  the  fruitfulness  and  the 
ripening  and  the  gathering-in  that  may  be  watched  and 
tended  and  counted  on  one  small  piece  of  ground. 

Everything  seemed  to  grow  that  she  touched,  and  it 
was  as  if  the  strength  of  her  own  nature  was  like  a  brook 
that  made  everything  gveen  where  it  went.  She  had 
her  failures  and  disappointments,  and  she  reaped  little 
in  some  places  where  she  had  looked  for  great  harvests. 
The  hay  was  partly  spoiled  by  some  wet  weather,  but 
there  was  still  enough  for  their  own  stock,  and  they 
sold  the  poultry  for  double  the  usual  money.  The  old 
doctor  was  Polly's  firm  friend,  and  he  grew  as  fond  of 
her  as  if  she  were  his  own  daughter,  and  could  hardly 
force  himself  to  take  the  money  she  brought  back  in 

331 


MODERN  STORIES 

payment  of  a  loan  she  had  been  forced  to  ask  of  him, 
unknown  even  to  her  mother,  once  when  things  went 
hard  against  her  enterprise  late  in  the  spring. 

John  Finch  gained  strength  slowly  all  that  summer, 
but  his  heart  grew  lighter  day  by  day,  and  he  and  Polly 
made  enthusiastic  plans  in  the  summer  evenings  for 
increased  sheep-raising  on  their  widespread  pasture- 
land,  and  for  a  great  poultry-yard,  which  was  to  bring 
them  not  a  little  wealth.  And  on  Thanksgiving  day, 
when  our  farmer  counted  up  her  gains  finally,  she  was 
out  of  debt,  and  more  than  satisfied  and  contented. 
She  said  over  and  over  again  that  she  never  should  be 
happier  than  she  had  been  that  summer.  But  more 
than  one  short-sighted  townswoman  wondered  that 
she  should  make  nothing  of  herself  when  she  had  had 
a  good  education,  and  many  spoke  as  if  Polly  would 
have  been  more  admirable  and  respectable  *if  she  had 
succeeded  in  getting  the  little  town  school  teachership. 
She  said  herself  that  she  was  thankful  for  everything 
she  had  learned  at  school  that  had  helped  her  about 
her  farming  and  gardening,  but  she  was  not  meant  for  a 
teacher.  "Unless  folks  take  a  lesson  from  your  exam- 
ple," said  the  doctor.  "I  Ve  seen  a  good  deal  of  human 
nature  in  my  day,  and  I  have  found  that  people  who 
look  at  things  as  they  are,  and  not  as  they  wish  them  to 
be,  are  the  ones  who  succeed.  And  when  you  see  that 
a  thing  ought  to  be  done,  either  do  it  yourself  or  be  sure 
you  get  it  done.  '  Here  I  've  no  school  to  teach,  and 
father  has  lost  his  money  and  his  health.  We  've  got  the 
farm;  but  I'm  only  a  girl.  The  land  won't  support  us 
if  we  let  it  on  the  halves.'    That 's  what  you  might  have 

332 


FARMER  FINCH 

said,  and  sat  down  and  cried.  But  I  liked  the  way  you 
undertook  things.  The  farm  was  going  to  be  worked 
and  made  to  pay;  you  were  going  to  do  it;  and  you  did 
do  it.  I  saw  you  mending  up  a  bit  of  fence  here  and 
there,  and  I  saw  you  busy  when  other  folks  were  lazy. 
You  're  a  good  girl,  Polly  Finch,  and  I  wish  there  were 
more  like  you,"  the  doctor  concluded.  "You  take  hold 
of  life  in  the  right  way.  There  's  plenty  of  luck  for  you 
in  the  world.  And  now  I  'm  going  to  let  you  have  some 
capital  this  next  spring,  at  a  fair  interest,  or  none,  and 
you  can  put  yourself  in  a  way  to  make  something  hand- 
some." 

This  is  only  a  story  of  a  girl  whom  fate  and  fortune 
seemed  to  baffle ;  a  glimpse  of  the  way  in  which  she  made 
the  best  of  things,  and  conquered  circumstances,  in- 
stead of  being  what  cowards  call  the  victim  of  circum- 
stances. Whether  she  will  live  and  die  as  Farmer  Finch, 
nobody  can  say,  but  it  is  not  very  likely.  One  thing  is 
certain :  her  own  character  had  made  as  good  a  summer's 
growth  as  anything  on  her  farm,  and  she  was  ashamed 
to  remember  that  she  had  ever  thought  seriously  of 
loving  Jerry  Minton.  It  will  be  a  much  better  man  than 
he  whom  she  falls  in  love  with  next.  And  whatever 
may  fall  to  her  lot  later,  she  will  always  be  glad  to  think 
that  in  that  sad  emergency  she  had  been  able  to  save 
her  father  and  mother  from  anxiety  and  despair,  and 
that  she  had  turned  so  eagerly  and  readily  to  the  work 
that  was  useful  and  possible  when  her  own  plans  had 
proved  impossible,  and  her  father's  strength  had  failed. 

All  that  is  left  to  be  said  of  this  chapter  of  her  story 
is  that  one  day  when  she  was  walking  to  the  village  on 

333 


MODERN  STORIES 

one  of  her  rare  and  happy  holidays  she  discovered  that, 
in  widening  a  bit  of  the  highway,  her  friend  the  little 
barberry  bush  was  to  be  uprooted  and  killed.  And  she 
took  a  spade  that  was  lying  idle,  the  workmen  having 
gone  down  the  road  a  short  distance,  and  dug  care- 
fully around  the  roots,  and  put  her  treasure  in  a  safe 
place  by  the  wall.  When  she  returned,  later  in  the  day, 
she  shouldered  it,  thorns  and  all,  and  carried  it  home, 
and  planted  it  in  an  excellent  situation  by  the  orchard 
fence;  and  there  it  still  grows  and  flourishes.  I  suppose 
she  will  say  to  herself  as  long  as  she  lives,  when  things 
look  ugly  and  troublesome,  "  I  '11  see  if  the  other  side  \& 
any  better,  like  my  barberry  bush." 


A  DESCENT  INTO  THE  MAEL- 
STROM 

By  Edgar  Allan  Foe 

WE  had  now  reached  the  summit  of  the  loftiest 
crag.    For  some  minutes  the  old  man  seemed 
too  much  exhausted  to  speak. 

"Not  long  ago,"  said  he  at  length,  "and  I  could  have 
guided  you  on  this  route  as  well  as  the  youngest  of  my 
sons;  but,  about  three  years  past,  there  happened  to 
me  an  event  such  as  never  happened  before  to  mortal 
man,  —  or  at  least  such  as  no  man  ever  survived  to 
tell  of,  —  and  the  six  hours  of  deadly  terror  which  I 
then  endured  have  broken  me  up  body  and  soul.  You 
suppose  me  a  very  old  man,  but  I  am  not.  It  took  less 
than  a  single  day  to  change  these  hairs  from  a  jetty  black 
to  white,  to  weaken  my  limbs,  and  to  unstring  my  nerves, 
so  that  I  tremble  at  the  least  exertion,  and  am  frightened 
at  a  shadow.  Do  you  know  I  can  scarcely  look  over  this 
little  cliff  without  getting  giddy  ? " 

The  "little  cliff,"  upon  whose  edge  he  had  so  care- 
lessly thrown  himself  down  to  rest  that  the  weightier 
portion  of  his  body  hung  over  it,  while  he  was  only  kept 
from  falling  by  the  tenure  of  his  elbow  on  its  extreme  and 
slippery  edge,  —  this  "  little  cliff "  arose,  a  sheer  un- 
obstructed precipice  of  black  shining  rock,  some  fifteen 
or  sixteen  hundred  feet  from  the  world  of  crags  beneath 

335 


MODERN   STORIES 

us.  Nothing  would  have  tempted  me  to  within  half  a 
dozen  yards  of  its  brink.  In  truth,  so  deeply  was  I  ex- 
cited by  the  perilous  position  of  my  companion,  that 
I  fell  at  full  length  upon  the  ground,  clung  to  the  shrubs 
around  me,  and  dared  not  even  glance  upward  at  the 
sky,  while  I  struggled  in  vain  to  divest  myself  of  the 
idea  that  the  very  foundations  of  the  mountain  were 
in  danger  from  the  fury  of  the  winds.  It  was  long  be- 
fore I  could  reason  myself  into  sufficient  courage  to  sit 
up  and  look  out  into  the  distance. 

"You  must  get  over  these  fancies,"  said  the  guide, 
"for  I  have  brought  you  here  that  you  might  have 
the  best  possible  view  of  the  scene  of  that  event  I 
mentioned,  and  to  tell  you  the  whole  story  with  the 
spot  just  under  your  eye." 

"We  are  now,"  he  continued,  in  that  particularizing 
manner  which  distinguished  him,  —  "  we  are  now  close 
upon  the  Norwegian  coast,  in  the  sixty-eighth  degree 
of  latitude,  in  the  great  province  of  Nordland,  and  in 
the  dreary  district  of  Lofoden.  The  mountain  upon 
whose  top  we  sit  is  Helseggen  the  Cloudy.  Now  raise 
yourself  up  a  little  higher  —  hold  on  to  the  grass  if  you 
feel  giddy  —  so  —  and  look  out,  beyond  the  belt  of 
vapor  beneath  us,  into  the  sea." 

I  looked  dizzily,  and  beheld  a  wide  expanse  of  ocean, 
whose  waters  wore  so  inky  a  hue  as  to  bring  at  once  to 
my  mind  the  Nubian  geographer's  account  of  the  Mare 
Tenebrarum.  A  panorama  more  deplorably  desolate  no 
human  imagination  can  conceive.  To  the  right  and 
left,  as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach,  there  lay  outstretched, 
like  ramparts  of  the  world,  lines  of  horridly  black  and 

336 


A  DESCENT  INTO  THE  MAELSTROM 

beetling  cliff,  whose  character  of  gloom  was  but  the 
more  forcibly  illustrated  by  the  surf  which  reared  high 
up  against  it  its  white  and  ghastly  crest,  howling  and 
shrieking  forever.  Just  opposite  the  promontory  upon 
whose  apex  we  were  placed,  and  at  a  distance  of  some 
five  or  six  miles  out  at  sea,  there  was  visible  a  small, 
bleak-looking  island;  or,  more  properly,  its  position 
was  discernible  through  the  wilderness  of  surge  in  which 
it  was  enveloped.  About  two  miles  nearer  the  land  arose 
another,  of  smaller  size,  hideously  craggy  and  barren, 
and  encompassed  at  various  intervals  by  a  cluster  of 
dark  rocks. 

The  appearance  of  the  ocean,  in  the  space  between 
the  more  distant  island  and  the  shore,  had  something 
very  unusual  about  it.  Although,  at  the  time,  so  strong 
a  gale  was  blowing  landward  that  a  brig  in  the  remote 
offing  lay  to  under  a  double-reefed  trysail,  and  con- 
stantly plunged  her  whole  hull  out  of  sight,  still  there 
was  here  nothing  like  a  regular  swell,  but  only  a  short, 
quick,  angry  cross-dashing  of  water  in  every  direction, 
—  as  well  in  the  teeth  of  the  wind  as  otherwise.  Of  foam 
there  was  little  except  in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  the 
rocks. 

"The  island  in  the  distance,"  resumed  the  old  man, 
"is  called  by  the  Norwegians  Vurrgh.  The  one  mid- 
way is  Moskoe.  That  a  mile  to  the  northward  is 
Ambaaren.  Yonder  are  Iflesen,  Hoeyholm,  Keildholm, 
Suarven,  and  Buckholm.  Farther  off  —  between  Mos- 
koe and  Vurrgh  —  are  Otterholm,  Flimen,  Sandflesen, 
and  Skarholm.  These  are  the  true  names  of  the  places; 
but  why  it  has  been  thought  necessary  to  name  them  at 

337 


MODERN  STORIES 

all  is  more  than  either  you  or  I  can  understand.  Do  you 
hear  anything  ?  Do  you  see  any  change  in  the  water  ?  " 

We  had  now  been  about  ten  minutes  upon  the  top 
of  Helseggen,  to  which  we  had  ascended  from  the  in- 
terior of  Lofoden,  so  that  we  had  caught  no  glimpse 
of  the  sea  until  it  had  burst  upon  us  from  the  summit. 
As  the  old  man  spoke,  I  became  aware  of  a  loud  and 
gradually  increasing  sound,  like  the  moaning  of  a  vast 
herd  of  buffaloes  upon  an  American  prairie;  and  at 
the  same  moment  I  perceived  that  what  seamen  term 
the  chopping  character  of  the  ocean  beneath  us  was 
rapidly  changing  into  a  current  which  set  to  the  east- 
ward. Even  while  I  gazed,  this  current  acquired  a  mon- 
strous velocity.  Each  moment  added  to  its  speed,  — 
to  its  headlong  impetuosity.  In  &ve  minutes  the  whole 
sea,  as  far  as  Vurrgh,  was  lashed  into  ungovernable 
fury;  but  it  was  between  Moskoe  and  the  coast  that 
the  main  uproar  held  its  sway. 

Here  the  vast  bed  of  the  waters,  seamed  and  scarred 
into  a  thousand  conflicting  channels,  burst  suddenly 
into  frenzied  convulsion,  —  heaving,  boiling,  hissing, 
—  gyrating  in  gigantic  and  innumerable  vortices,  and 
all  whirling  and  plunging  on  to  the  eastward  with  a 
rapidity  which  water  never  elsewhere  assumes,  except 
in  precipitous  descents. 

In  a  few  minutes  more,  there  came  over  the  scene 
another  radical  alteration.  The  general  surface  grew 
somewhat  more  smooth,  and  the  whirlpools,  one  by 
one,  disappeared,  while  prodigious  streaks  of  foam 
became  apparent  where  none  had  been  seen  before. 
These  streaks  at  length,  spreading  out  to  a  great  dis- 

338 


A  DESCENT  INTO  THE  MAELSTROM 

tance  and  entering  into  combination,  took  unto  them- 
selves the  gyratory  motion  of  the  subsided  vortices,  and 
seemed  to  form  the  germ  of  another  more  vast.  Suddenly 
—  very  suddenly  —  this  assumed  a  distinct  and  definite 
existence,  in  a  circle  of  more  than  a  mile  in  diameter. 
The  edge  of  the  whirl  was  represented  by  a  broad  belt 
of  gleaming  spray;  but  no  particle  of  this  slipped  into 
the  mouth  of  the  terrific  funnel,  whose  interior,  as  far 
as  the  eye  could  fathom  it,  was  a  smooth,  shining,  and 
jet-black  wall  of  water,  inclined  to  the  horizon  at  an 
angle  of  some  forty-five  degrees,  speeding  dizzily  round 
and  round  with  a  swaying  and  sweltering  motion,  and 
sending  forth  to  the  winds  an  appalling  voice,  half 
shriek,  half  roar,  such  as  not  even  the  mighty  cataract 
of  Niagara  ever  lifts  up  in  its  agony  to  Heaven. 

The  mountain  trembled  to  its  very  base,  and  the  rock 
rocked.  I  threw  myself  upon  my  face,  and  clung  to  the 
scant  herbage  in  an  excess  of  nervous  agitation. 

"This,"  said  I  at  length,  to  the  old  man,  —  "this 
can  be  nothing  else  than  the  great  whirlpool  of  the 
Maelstrom." 

"So  it  is  sometimes  termed,"  said  he.  "We  Nor- 
wegians call  it  the  Moskoe-strom,  from  the  island  of 
Moskoe  in  the  midway." 

The  ordinary  accounts  of  this  vortex  had  by  no  means 
prepared  me  for  what  I  saw.  That  of  Jonas  Ramus, 
which  is  perhaps  the  most  circumstantial  of  any,  cannot 
impart  the  faintest  conception  either  of  the  magnifi- 
cence or  of  the  horror  of  the  scene,  —  or  of  the  wild, 
bewildering  sense  of  the  novel,  which  confounds  the 
beholder.    I  am  not  sure  from  what  point  of  view  the 

339 


MODERN  STORIES 

writer  in  question  surveyed  it,  nor  at  what  time;  but 
it  could  neither  have  been  from  the  summit  of  Helseg- 
gen,  nor  during  a  storm.  There  are  some  passages  of 
his  description,  nevertheless,  which  may  be  quoted  for 
their  details,  although  their  effect  is  exceedingly  feeble 
in  conveying  an  impression  of  the  spectacle. 

"  Between  Lofoden  and  Moskoe,"  he  says,  "  the  depth 
of  the  water  is  between  thirty-six  and  forty  fathoms; 
but  on  the  other  side,  toward  Ver  (Vurrgh),  this  depth 
decreases  so  as  not  to  afford  a  convenient  passage  for 
a  vessel  without  the  risk  of  splitting  on  the  rocks,  which 
happens  even  in  the  calmest  weather.  When  it  is  flood, 
the  stream  runs  up  the  country  between  Lofoden  and 
Moskoe  with  a  boisterous  rapidity;  but  the  roar  of  its 
impetuous  ebb  to  the  sea  is  scarce  equaled  by  the  loud- 
est and  most  dreadful  cataracts,  the  noise  being  heard 
several  leagues  off;  and  the  vortices  or  pits  are  of  such 
an  extent  and  depth  that,  if  a  ship  comes  within  its 
attraction,  it  is  inevitably  absorbed  and  carried  down 
to  the  bottom,  and  there  beat  io  pieces  against  the  rocks; 
and  when  the  water  relaxes,  the  fragments  thereof  are 
thrown  up  again.  But  these  intervals  of  tranquillity 
are  only  at  the  turn  of  the  ebb  and  flood,  and  in  calm 
weather,  and  last  but  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  its  violence 
gradually  returning.  When  the  stream  is  most  boister- 
ous, and  its  fury  heightened  by  a  storm,  it  is  dangerous 
to  come  within  a  Norway  mile  of  it.  Boats,  yachts, 
and  ships  have  been  carried  away  by  not  guarding 
against  it  before  they  were  within  its  reach.  It  like- 
wise happens  frequently  that  whales  come  too  near  the 
stream,  and  are  overpowered  by  its  violence;  and  then 

340 


A  DESCENT  INTO  THE  MAELSTROM 

it  is  impossible  to  describe  their  howlings  and  bellow- 
ings  in  their  fruitless  struggles  to  disengage  themselves. 
A  bear  once,  attempting  to  swim  from  Lofoden  to 
Moskoe,  was  caught  by  the  stream  and  borne  down, 
while  he  roared  terribly,  so  as  to  be  heard  on  shore. 
Large  stocks  of  firs  and  pine  trees,  after  being  absorbed 
by  the  current,  rise  again  broken  and  torn  to  such  a  de- 
gree as  if  bristles  grew  upon  them.  This  plainly  shows 
the  bottom  to  consist  of  craggy  rocks,  among  which  they 
are  whirled  to  and  fro.  This  stream  is  regulated  by  the 
flux  and  reflux  of  the  sea,  it  being  constantly  high  and 
low  water  every  six  hours.  In  the  year  1645,  early  in 
the  morning  of  Sexagesima  Sunday,  it  raged  with  such 
noise  and  impetuosity  that  the  very  stones  of  the  houses 
on  the  coast  fell  to  the  ground." 

In  regard  to  the  depth  of  the  water,  I  could  not  see 
how  this  could  have  been  ascertained  at  all  in  the  im- 
mediate vicinity  of  the  vortex.  The  "forty  fathoms" 
must  have  reference  only  to  portions  of  the  channel 
close  upon  the  shore  either  of  Moskoe  or  Lofoden.  The 
depth  in  the  centre  of  the  Moskoe-strom  must  be  im- 
measurably greater;  and  no  better  proof  of  this  fact  is 
necessary  than  can  be  obtained  from  even  the  sidelong 
glance  into  the  abyss  of  the  whirl  which  may  be  had 
from  the  highest  crag  of  Helseggen.  Looking  down 
from  this  pinnacle  upon  the  howling  Phlegethon  below, 
I  could  not  help  smiling  at  the  simplicity  with  which 
the  honest  Jonas  Ramus  records,  as  a  matter  difficult 
of  belief,  the  anecdotes  of  the  whales  and  the  bears; 
for  it  appeared  to  me,  in  fact,  a  self-evident  thing  that 
the  largest  ships  of  the  line  in  existence,  coming  within 

341 


MODERN  STORIES 

the  influence  of  that  deadly  attraction,  could  resist  it 
as  little  as  a  feather  the  hurricane,  and  must  disappear 
bodily  and  at  once. 

The  attempts  to  account  for  the  phenomenon  — 
some  of  which,  I  remember,  seemed  to  me  sufficiently 
plausible  in  perusal  —  now  wore  a  very  different  and 
unsatisfactory  aspect.  The  idea  generally  received  is 
that  this,  as  well  as  three  smaller  vortices  among  the 
Feroe  islands,  "have  no  other  cause  than  the  collision 
of  waves  rising  and  falling,  at  flux  and  reflux,  against 
a  ridge  of  rocks  and  shelves,  which  confines  the  water 
so  that  it  precipitates  itself  like  a  cataract;  and  thus 
the  higher  the  flood  rises,  the  deeper  must  the  fall  be, 
and  the  natural  result  of  all  is  a  whirlpool  or  vortex, 
the  prodigious  suction  of  which  is  sufficiently  known 
by  lesser  experiments."  These  are  the  words  of  the 
Encyclopaedia  Britannica.  Kircher  and  others  im- 
agine that  in  the  centre  of  the  channel  of  the  Maelstrom 
is  an  abyss  penetrating  the  globe,  and  issuing  in  some 
very  remote  part,  —  the  Gulf  of  Bothnia  being  some- 
what decidedly  named  in  one  instance.  This  opinion, 
idle  in  itself,  was  the  one  to  which,  as  I  gazed,  my  im- 
agination most  readily  assented;  and,  mentioning  it  to 
the  guide,  I  was  rather  surprised  to  hear  him  say  that 
although  it  was  the  view  almost  universally  entertained 
of  the  subject  by  the  Norwegians,  it  nevertheless  was 
not  his  own.  As  to  the  former  notion,  he  confessed  his 
inability  to  comprehend  it;  and  here  I  agreed  with  him, 
—  for,  however  conclusive  on  paper,  it  becomes  alto- 
gether unintelligible,  and  even  absurd,  amid  the  thunder 
of  the  abyss. 

342 


A  DESCENT  INTO  THE  MAELSTROM 

"You  have  had  a  good  look  at  the  whirl  now,"  said 
the  old  man,  "  and  if  you  will  creep  round  this  crag,  so 
as  to  get  in  its  lee,  and  deaden  the  roar  of  the  water, 
I  will  tell  you  a  story  that  will  convince  you  I  ought  to 
know  something  of  the  Moskoe-strom." 

I  placed  myself  as  desired,  and  he  proceeded. 

"  Myself  and  my  two  brothers  once  owned  a  schooner- 
rigged  smack  of  about  seventy  tons'  burden,  with  which 
we  were  in  the  habit  of  fishing  among  the  islands  be- 
yond Moskoe,  nearly  to  Vurrgh.  In  all  violent  eddies 
at  sea  there  is  good  fishing,  at  proper  opportunities,  if 
one  has  only  the  courage  to  attempt  it;  but  among  the 
whole  of  the  Lofoden  coastmen  we  three  were  the  only 
ones  who  made  a  regular  business  of  going  out  to  the 
islands,  as  I  tell  you.  The  usual  grounds  are  a  great 
way  lower  down  to  the  southward.  There  fish  can  be 
got  at  all  hours,  without  much  risk,  and  therefore  these 
places  are  preferred. .  The  choice  spots  over  here  among 
the  rocks,  however,  not  only  yield  the  finest  variety, 
but  in  far  greater  abundance;  so  that  we  often  got  in 
a  single  day  what  the  more  timid  of  the  craft  could  not 
scrape  together  in  a  week.  In  fact,  we  made  it  a  matter 
of  desperate  speculation  —  the  risk  of  life  standing  in- 
stead of  labor,  and  courage  answering  for  capital. 

"  We  kept  the  smack  in  a  cove  about  five  miles  higher 
up  the  coast  than  this;  and  it  was  our  practice  in  fine 
weather  to  take  advantage  of  the  fifteen  minutes'  slack 
to  push  across  the  main  channel  of  the  Moskoe-strom, 
far  above  the  pool,  and  then  drop  down  upon  anchor- 
age somewhere  near  Otterholm  or  Sandflesen,  where 
the  eddies  are  not  so  violent  as  elsewhere.  Here  we  used 

343 


MODERN  STORIES 

to  remain  until  nearly  time  for  slack  water  again,  when 
we  weighed  and  made  for  home.  We  never  set  out 
upon  this  expedition  without  a  steady  side  wind  for 
going  and  coming,  —  one  that  we  felt  sure  would  not 
fail  us  before  our  return,  —  and  we  seldom  made  a 
miscalculation  upon  this  point.  Twice  during  six  years 
we  were  forced  to  stay  all  night  at  anchor  on  account 
of  a  dead  calm,  which  is  a  rare  thing  indeed  just  about 
here;  and  once  we  had  to  remain  on  the  grounds  nearly 
a  week,  starving  to  death,  owing  to  a  gale  which  blew 
up  shortly  after  our  arrival,  and  made  the  channel  too 
boisterous  to  be  thought  of.  Upon  this  occasion  we 
should  have  been  driven  out  to  sea  in  spite  of  every- 
thing (for  the  whirlpools  threw  us  round  and  round 
so  violently,  that  at  length  we  fouled  our  anchor  and 
dragged  it)  if  it  had  not  been  that  we  drifted  into  one 
of  the  innumerable  cross-currents  —  here  to-day  and 
gone  to-morrow  —  which  drove  us  under  the  lee  of 
Flimen,  where,  by  good  luck,  we  brought  up. 

"I  could  not  tell  you  the  twentieth  part  of  the  diffi- 
culties we  encountered  '  on  the  ground,'  —  it  is  a  bad 
spot  to  be  in,  even  in  good  weather,  —  but  we  made 
shift  always  to  run  the  gauntlet  of  the  Moskoe-strom 
itself  without  accident,  although  at  times  my  heart  has 
been  in  my  mouth  when  we  happened  to  be  a  minute 
or  so  behind  or  before  the  slack.  The  wind  sometimes 
was  not  as  strong  as  we  thought  it  at  starting,  and  then 
we  made  rather  less  way  than  we  could  wish,  while  the 
current  rendered  the  smack  unmanageable.  My  eldest 
brother  had  a  son  eighteen  years  old,  and  I  had  two 
stout  boys  of  my  own.  These  would  have  been  of  great 

344 


A  DESCENT  INTO  THE  MAELSTROM 

assistance  at  such  times  in  using  the  sweeps,  as  well  as 
afterward  in  fishing ;  but,  somehow,  although  we  ran  the 
risk  ourselves,  we  had  not  the  heart  to  let  the  young  ones 
get  into  the  danger,  for,  after  all  said  and  done,  it  was 
a  horrible  danger,  and  that  is  the  truth. 

"  It  is  now  within  a  few  days  of  three  years  since  what 
I  am  going  to  tell  you  occurred.  It  was  on  the  tenth  of 
of  July,  18 — ,  a  day  which  the  people  of  this  part  of  the 
world  will  never  forget,  for  it  was  one  in  which  blew 
the  most  terrible  hurricane  that  ever  came  out  of  the 
heavens.  And  yet  all  the  morning,  and  indeed  until 
late  in  the  afternoon,  there  was  a  gentle  and  steady 
breeze  from  the  southwest,  while  the  sun  shone  brightly, 
so  that  the  oldest  seaman  among  us  could  not  have  fore- 
seen what  was  to  follow. 

"  The  three  of  us  —  my  two  brothers  and  myself  — 
had  crossed  over  to  the  islands  about  two  o'clock,  p.  m., 
and  soon  nearly  loaded  the  smack  with  fine  fish,  which, 
we  all  remarked,  were  more  plenty  that  day  than  we 
had  ever  known  them.  It  was  just  seven  by  my  watch 
when  we  weighed  and  started  for  home,  so  as  to  make 
the  worst  of  the  strom  at  slack  water,  which  we  knew 
would  be  at  eight. 

"  We  set  out  with  a  fresh  wind  on  our  starboard  quar- 
ter, and  for  some  time  spanked  along  at  a  great  rate, 
never  dreaming  of  danger,  for  indeed  we  saw  not  the 
slightest  reason  to  apprehend  it.  All  at  once  we  were 
taken  aback  by  a  breeze  from  over  Helseggen.  This 
was  most  unusual,  —  something  that  had  never  hap- 
pened to  us  before,  —  and  I  began  to  feel  a  little  uneasy, 
without  exactly  knowing  why.   We  put  the  boat  on  the 

345 


MODERN  STORIES 

wind,  but  could  make  no  headway  at  all  for  the  eddies, 
and  I  was  upon  the  point  of  proposing  to  return  to 
the  anchorage,  when,  looking  astern,  we  saw  the  whole 
horizon  covered  with  a  singular  copper-colored  cloud 
that  rose  with  the  most  amazing  velocity. 

"  In  the  mean  time  the  breeze  that  had  headed  us  off 
fell  away,  and  we  were  dead  becalmed,  drifting  about 
in  every  direction.  This  state  of  things,  however,  did 
not  last  long  enough  to  give  us  time  to  think  about  it. 
In  less  than  a  minute  the  storm  was  upon  us;  in  less 
than  two  the  sky  was  entirely  overcast;  and  what  with 
this  and  the  driving  spray,  it  became  suddenly  so  dark 
that  we  could  not  see  each  other  in  the  smack. 

"  Such  a  hurricane  as  then  blew  it  is  folly  to  attempt 
describing.  The  oldest  seaman  in  Norway  never  expe- 
rienced anything  like  it.  We  had  let  our  sails  go  by 
the  run  before  it  cleverly  took  us;  but,  at  the  first  puff, 
both  our  masts  went  by  the  board  as  if  they  had  been 
sawed  off,  —  the  mainmast  taking  with  it  my  youngest 
brother,  who  had  lashed  himself  to  it  for  safety. 

"Our  boat  was  the  lightest  feather  of  a  thing  that 
ever  sat  upon  water.  It  had  a  complete  flush  deck,  with 
only  a  small  hatch  near  the  bow,  and  this  hatch  it  had 
always  been  our  custom  to  batten  down  when  about  to 
cross  the  strom,  by  way  of  precaution  against  the  chop- 
ping seas.  But  for  this  circumstance  we  should  have 
foundered  at  once,  for  we  lay  entirely  buried  for  some 
moments.  How  my  elder  brother  escaped  destruction 
I  cannot  say,  for  I  never  had  an  opportunity  of  ascer- 
taining. For  my  part,  as  soon  as  I  had  let  the  foresail 
run,  I  threw  myself  flat  on  deck,  with  my  feet  against 

346 


A  DESCENT  INTO  THE  MAELSTROM 

the  narrow  gunwale  of  the  bow,  and  with  my  hands 
grasping  a  ring-bolt  near  the  foot  of  the  foremast.  It 
was  mere  instinct  that  prompted  me  to  do  this,  —  which 
was  undoubtedly  the  very  best  thing  I  could  have  done, 
—  for  I  was  too  much  flurried  to  think. 

"  For  some  moments  we  were  completely  deluged,  as 
I  say,  and  all  this  time  I  held  my  breath  and  clung  to 
the  bolt.  When  I  could  stand  it  no  longer  I  raised  my- 
self upon  my  knees,  still  keeping  hold  with  my  hands, 
and  thus  got  my  head  clear.  Presently  our  little  boat 
gave  herself  a  shake,  just  as  a  dog  does  in  coming  out 
of  the  water,  and  thus  rid  herself,  in  some  measure,  of 
the  seas.  I  was  now  trying  to  get  the  better  of  the  stupor 
that  had  come  over  me,  and  to  collect  my  senses  so  as 
to  see  what  was  to  be  done,  when  I  felt  somebody  grasp 
my  arm.  It  was  my  elder  brother,  and  my  heart  leaped 
for  joy,  for  I  had  made  sure  that  he  was  overboard; 
but  the  next  moment  all  this  joy  was  turned  into  horror, 
for  he  put  his  mouth  close  to  my  ear  and  screamed  out 
the  word  '  Moskoe-strom ! ' 

"No  one  ever  will  know  what  my  feelings  were  at 
that  moment.  I  shook  from  head  to  foot,  as  if  I  had 
had  the  most  violent  fit  of  the  ague.  I  knew  what  he 
meant  by  that  one  word  well  enough,  —  I  knew  what 
he  wished  to  make  me  understand.  With  the  wind  that 
now  drove  us  on,  we  were  bound  for  the  whirl  of  the 
strom,  and  nothing  could  save  us! 

"You  perceive  that,  in  crossing  the  strom  channel, 
we  always  went  a  long  way  up  above  the  whirl,  even  in 
the  calmest  weather,  and  then  had  to  wait  and  watch 
carefully  for  the  slack;  but  now  we  were  driving  right 

347 


MODERN  STORIES 

upon  the  pool  itself,  and  in  such  a  hurricane  as  this! 
'To  be  sure,'  I  thought,  'we  shall  get  there  just  about 
the  slack,  —  there  is  some  little  hope  in  that,'  —  but  in 
the  next  moment  I  cursed  myself  for  being  so  great  a 
fool  as  to  dream  of  hope  at  all.  I  knew  very  well  that 
we  were  doomed,  had  we  been  ten  times  a  ninety-gun 
ship. 

"  By  this  time  the  first  fury  of  the  tempest  had  spent 
itself,  or  perhaps  we  did  not  feel  it  so  much  as  we 
scudded  before  it;  but  at  all  events  the  seas,  which  at 
first  had  been  kept  down  by  the  wind  and  lay  flat  and 
frothing,  now  got  up  into  absolute  mountains.  A  singu- 
lar change,  too,  had  come  over  the  heavens.  Around  in 
every  direction  it  was  still  as  black  as  pitch,  but  nearly 
overhead  there  burst  out,  all  at  once,  a  circular  rift 
of  clear  sky,  —  as  clear  as  I  ever  saw,  and  of  a  deep, 
bright  blue,  —  and  through  it  there  blazed  forth  the 
full  moon  with  a  lustre  that  I  never  before  knew  her  to 
wear.  She  lit  up  everything  about  us  with  the  greatest 
distinctness  —  but,  oh,  God,  what  a  scene  it  was  to 
light  up! 

"I  now  made  one  or  two  attempts  to  speak  to  my 
brother,  but,  in  some  manner  in  which  I  could  not  un- 
derstand, the  din  had  so  increased  that  I  could  not  make 
him  hear  a  single  word,  although  I  screamed  at  the  top 
of  my  voice  in  his  ear.  Presently  he  shook  his  head, 
looking  as  pale  as  death,  and  held  up  one  of  his  fingers, 
as  if  to  say,  Listen! 

"At  first  I  could  not  make  out  what  he  meant,  but 
soon  a  hideous  thought  flashed  upon  me.  I  dragged 
my  watch  from  its  fob.   It  was  not  going.   I  glanced  at 

348 


A  DESCENT  INTO  THE  MAELSTROM 

its  face  by  the  moonlight,  and  then  burst  into  tears  as 
I  flung  it  far  away  into  the  ocean.  It  had  run  down  at 
seven  o'clock  !  We  were  behind  the  time  of  the  slack,  and 
the  whirl  of  the  strom  was  in  full  fury  ! 

"When  a  boat  is  well  built,  properly  trimmed,  and 
not  deep-laden,  the  waves  in  a  strong  gale,  when  she 
is  going  large,  seem  always  to  slip  from  beneath  her, 

—  which  appears  very  strange  to  a  landsman,  —  and 
this  is  what  is  called  riding,  in  sea  phrase. 

"Well,  so  far  we  had  ridden  the  swells  very  cleverly; 
but  presently  a  gigantic  sea  happened  to  take  us  right 
under  the  counter,  and  bore  us  with  it  as  it  rose  —  up 

—  up  —  as  if  into  the  sky.  I  would  not  have  believed 
that  any  wave  could  rise  so  high.  And  then  down  we 
came  with  a  sweep,  a  slide,  and  a  plunge  that  made  me 
feel  sick  and  dizzy,  as  if  I  was  falling  from  some  lofty 
mountain-top  in  a  dream.  But  while  we  were  up  I  had 
thrown  a  quick  glance  around,  —  and  that  one  glance 
was  all-sufficient.  I  saw  our  exact  position  in  an  instant. 
The  Moskoe-strom  whirlpool  was  about  a  quarter  of 
a  mile  dead  ahead,  but  no  more  like  the  every-day  Mos- 
koe-strom than  the  whirl  as  you  now  see  it  is  like  a  mill- 
race.  If  I  had  not  known  where  we  were,  and  what  we 
had  to  expect,  I  should  not  have  recognized  the  place 
at  all.  As  it  was,  I  involuntarily  closed  my  eyes  in  hor- 
ror. The  lids  clenched  themselves  together  as  if  in  a 
spasm. 

"It  could  not  have  been  more  than  two  minutes  af- 
terward until  we  suddenly  felt  the  waves  subside,  and 
were  enveloped  in  foam.  The  boat  made  a  sharp  half 
turn  to  larboard,  and  then  shot  off  in  its  new  direction 

349 


MODERN  STORIES 

like  a  thunderbolt.  At  the  same  moment  the  roarings 
noise  of  the  water  was  completely  drowned  in  a  kind 
of  shrill  shriek,  —  such  a  sound  as  you  might  imagine 
given  out  by  the  water-pipes  of  many  thousand  steam- 
vessels  letting  off  their  steam  all  together.  We  were  now 
in  the  belt  of  surf  which  always  surrounds  the  whirl; 
and  I  thought,  of  course,  that  another  moment  would 
plunge  us  into  the  abyss,  down  which  we  could  only 
see  indistinctly  on  account  of  the  amazing  velocity  with 
which  we  were  borne  along.  The  boat  did  not  seem  to 
sink  into  the  water  at  all,  but  to  skim  like  an  air-bubble 
upon  the  surface  of  the  surge.  Her  starboard  side  was 
next  the  whirl,  and  on  the  larboard  arose  the  world  of 
ocean  we  had  left.  It  stood  like  a  huge  writhing  wall 
between  us  and  the  horizon. 

"It  may  appear  strange,  but  now,  when  we  were  in 
the  very  jaws  of  the  gulf,  I  felt  more  composed  than 
when  we  were  only  approaching  it.  Having  made  up 
my  mind  to  hope  no  more,  I  got  rid  of  a  great  deal  of 
that  terror  which  unmanned  me  at  first.  I  suppose  it 
was  despair  that  strung  my  nerves. 

"It  may  look  like  boasting,  but  what  I  tell  you  is 
truth,  —  I  began  to  reflect  how  magnificent  a  thing  it 
was  to  die  in  such  a  manner,  and  how  foolish  it  was  in 
me  to  think  of  so  paltry  a  consideration  as  my  own  in- 
dividual life,  in  view  of  so  wonderful  a  manifestation 
of  God's  power.  I  do  believe  that  I  blushed  with  shame 
when  this  idea  crossed  my  mind.  After  a  little  while  I 
became  possessed  with  the  keenest  curiosity  about  the 
whirl  itself.  I  positively  felt  a  wish  to  explore  its  depths, 
even  at  the  sacrifice  I  was  going  to  make;  and  my  prin- 

350 


A  DESCENT  INTO  THE  MAELSTROM 

cipal  grief  was  that  I  should  never  be  able  to  tell  my 
old  companions  on  shore  about  the  mysteries  I  should 
see.  These,  no  doubt,  were  singular  fancies  to  occupy  a 
man's  mind  in  such  extremity,  and  I  have  often  thought 
since  that  the  revolutions  of  the  boat  around  the  pool 
might  have  rendered  me  a  little  light-headed. 

"There  was  another  circumstance  which  tended  to 
restore  my  self-possession;  and  this  was  the  cessation 
of  the  wind,  which  could  not  reach  us  in  our  present 
situation;  for,  as  you  saw  yourself,  the  belt  of  surf  is 
considerably  lower  than  the  general  bed  of  the  ocean, 
and  this  latter  now  towered  above  us,  a  high,  black, 
mountainous  ridge.  If  you  have  never  been  at  sea  in  a 
heavy  gale,  you  can  form  no  idea  of  the  confusion  of 
mind  occasioned  by  the  wind  and  spray  together.  They 
blind,  deafen,  and  strangle  you,  and  take  away  all 
power  of  action  or  reflection.  But  we  were  now,  in  a 
great  measure,  rid  of  these  annoyances,  just  as  death- 
condemned  felons  in  prison  are  allowed  petty  indul- 
gences forbidden  them  while  their  doom  is  yet  uncer- 
tain. 

"How  often  we  made  the  circuit  of  the  belt  it  is  im- 
possible to  say.  We  careered  round  and  round  for  per- 
haps an  hour,  flying  rather  than  floating,  getting  grad- 
ually more  and  more  into  the  middle  of  the  surge,  and 
then  nearer  and  nearer  to  its  horrible  inner  edge.  All 
this  time  I  had  never  let  go  of  the  ring-bolt.  My  bro- 
ther was  at  the  stern,  holding  on  to  a  small  empty  water- 
cask  which  had  been  securely  lashed  under  the  coop  of 
the  counter,  and  was  the  only  thing  on  deck  that  had 
not  been  swept  overboard  when  the  gale  first  took  us. 

351 


MODERN  STORIES 

As  we  approached  the  brink  of  the  pit  he  let  go  his 
hold  upon  this  and  made  for  the  ring,  from  which,  in 
the  agony  of  his  terror,  he  endeavored  to  force  my  hands, 
as  it  was  not  large  enough  to  afford  us  both  a  secure 
grasp.  I  never  felt  deeper  grief  than  when  I  saw  him 
attempt  this  act,  although  I  knew  he  was  a  madman 
when  he  did  it,  —  a  raving  maniac  through  sheer  fright. 
I  did  not  care,  however,  to  contest  the  point  with  him. 
I  knew  it  could  make  no  difference  whether  either  of 
us  held  on  at  all,  so  I  let  him  have  the  bolt,  and  went 
astern  to  the  cask.  This  there  was  no  great  difficulty  in 
doing,  for  the  smack  flew  round  steadily  enough,  and 
upon  an  even  keel,  —  only  swaying  to  and  fro  with  the 
immense  sweeps  and  swelters  of  the  whirl.  Scarcely 
had  I  secured  myself  in  my  new  position  when  we  gave 
a  wild  lurch  to  starboard,  and  rushed  headlong  into  the 
abyss.  I  muttered  a  hurried  prayer  to  God,  and  thought 
all  was  over. 

"As  I  felt  the  sickening  sweep  of  the  descent,  I  had 
instinctively  tightened  my  hold  upon  the  barrel  and 
closed  my  eyes.  For  some  seconds  I  dared  not  open 
them,  —  while  I  expected  instant  destruction,  and  I 
wondered  that  I  was  not  already  in  my  death-struggles 
with  the  water.  But  moment  after  moment  elapsed.  I 
still  lived.  The  sense  of  falling  had  ceased;  and  the  mo- 
tion of  the  vessel  seemed  much  as  it  had  been  before, 
while  in  the  belt  of  foam,  with  the  exception  that  she 
now  lay  more  along.  I  took  courage  and  looked  once 
again  upon  the  scene. 

"Never  shall  I  forget  the  sensations  of  awe,  horror, 
and  admiration  with  which  I  gazed  about  me.     The 

352 


A  DESCENT  INTO  THE  MAELSTROM 

boat  appeared  to  be  hanging,  as  if  by  magic,  midway 
down,  upon  the  interior  surface  of  a  funnel  vast  in  cir- 
cumference, prodigious  in  depth,  and  whose  perfectly 
smooth  sides  might  have  been  mistaken  for  ebony, 
but  for  the  bewildering  rapidity  with  which  they  spun 
around,  and  for  the  gleaming  and  ghastly  radiance 
they  shot  forth,  as  the  rays  of  the  full  moon,  from  that 
circular  rift  amid  the  clouds,  which  I  have  already  de- 
scribed, streamed  in  a  flood  of  golden  glory  along  the 
black  walls,  and  far  away  down  into  the  inmost  recesses 
of  the  abyss. 

"  At  first  I  was  too  much  confused  to  observe  anything 
accurately.  The  general  burst,  of  terrific  grandeur  was 
all  that  I  beheld.  When  I  recovered  myself  a  little, 
however,  my  gaze  fell  instinctively  downward.  In  this 
direction  I  was  able  to  obtain  an  unobstructed  view, 
from  the  manner  in  which  the  smack  hung  on  the  in- 
clined surface  of  the  pool.  She  was  quite  upon  an  even 
keel,  —  that  is  to  say,  her  deck  lay  in  a  plane  parallel 
with  that  of  the  water;  but  this  latter  sloped  at  an  angle 
of  more  than  forty-five  degrees,  so  that  we  seemed  to  be 
lying  upon  the  beam  ends.  I  could  not  help  observing, 
nevertheless,  that  I  had  scarcely  more  difficulty  in  main- 
taining my  hold  and  footing  in  this  situation  than  if  we 
had  been  upon  a  dead  level;  and  this,  I  suppose,  was 
owing  to  the  speed  at  which  we  revolved. 

"The  rays  of  the  moon  seemed  to  search  the  very 
bottom  of  the  profound  gulf;  but  still  I  could  make  out 
nothing  distinctly,  on  account  of  a  thick  mist  in  which 
everything  there  was  enveloped,  and  over  which  there 
hung   a   magnificent   rainbow,  like   that  narrow   and 

353 


MODERN  STORIES 

tottering  bridge  which  Mussulmans  say  is  the  only 
pathway  between  Time  and  Eternity.  This  mist  or  spray 
was  no  doubt  occasioned  by  the  clashing  of  the  great 
walls  of  the  funnel  as  they  all  met  together  at  the  bot- 
tom; but  the  yell  that  went  up  to  the  heavens  from  out 
of  that  mist  I  dare  not  attempt  to  describe. 

"  Our  first  slide  into  the  abyss  itself,  from  the  belt  of 
foam  above,  had  carried  us  to  a  great  distance  down  the 
slope ;  but  our  farther  descent  was  by  no  means  propor- 
tionate. Round  and  round  we  swept,  —  not  with  any 
uniform  movement,  but  in  dizzying  swings  and  jerks 
that  sent  us  sometimes  nearly  a  few  hundred  yards, 
sometimes  nearly  the  complete  circuit  of  the  whirl.  Our 
progress  downward,  at  each  revolution,  was  slow  but 
very  perceptible. 

"Looking  about  me  upon  the  wide  waste  of  liquid 
ebony  on  which  we  were  thus  borne,  I  perceived  that 
our  boat  was  not  the  only  object  in  the  embrace  of  the 
whirl.  Both  above  and  below  us  were  visible  fragments 
of  vessels,  large  masses  of  building  timber  and  trunks 
of  trees,  with  many  smaller  articles,  such  as  pieces  of 
house  furniture,  broken  boxes,  barrels,  and  staves.  I 
have  already  described  the  unnatural  curiosity  which 
had  taken  the  place  of  my  original  terrors.  It  appeared 
to  grow  upon  me  as  I  drew  nearer  and  nearer  to  my 
dreadful  doom.  I  now  began  to  watch  with  a  strange 
interest  the  numerous  things  that  floated  in  our  com- 
pany. I  must  have  been  delirious;  for  I  even  sought 
amusement  in  speculating  upon  the  relative  velocities 
of  their  several  descents  toward  the  foam  below.  ■  This 
fir  tree,'  I  found  myself  at  one  time  saying,  'will  cer- 

354 


A  DESCENT  INTO  THE  MAELSTROM 

tainly  be  the  next  thing  that  takes  the  awful  plunge  and 
disappears;'  and  then  I  was  disappointed  to  find  that 
the  wreck  of  a  Dutch  merchant  ship  overtook  it  and 
went  down  before.  At  length,  after  making  several 
guesses  of  this  nature,  and  being  deceived  in  all,  this 
fact  —  the  fact  of  my  invariable  miscalculation  —  set 
me  upon  a  train  of  reflection  that  made  my  limbs  again 
tremble,  and  my  heart  beat  heavily  once  more. 

"It  was  not  a  new  terror  that  thus  affected  me,  but 
the  dawn  of  a  more  exciting  hope.  This  hope  arose 
partly  from  memory,  and  partly  from  present  observa- 
tion. I  called  to  mind  the  great  variety  of  buoyant 
matter  that  strewed  the  coast  of  Lofoden,  having  been 
absorbed  and  then  thrown  forth  by  the  Moskoe-strom. 
By  far  the  greater  number  of  the  articles  were  shattered 
in  the  most  extraordinary  way,  —  so  chafed  and  rough- 
ened as  to  have  the  appearance  of  being  stuck  full  of 
splinters,  —  but  then  I  distinctly  recollected  that  there 
were  some  of  them  which  were  not  disfigured  at  all. 
Now  I  could  not  account  for  this  difference  except  by 
supposing  that  the  roughened  fragments  were  the  only 
ones  which  had  been  completely  absorbed,  —  that  the 
others  had  entered  the  whirl  at  so  late  a  period  of  the 
tide,  or  from  some  reason  had  descended  so  slowly  af- 
ter entering,  that  they  did  not  reach  the  bottom  before 
the  turn  of  the  flood  came,  or  of  the  ebb,  as  the  case 
might  be.  I  conceived  it  possible,  in  either  instance, 
that  they  might  be  thus  whirled  up  again  to  the  level 
of  the  ocean,  without  undergoing  the  fate  of  those  which 
had  been  drawn  in  more  early  or  absorbed  more 
rapidly.  I  made,  also,  three  important  observations.  The 

355 


MODERN    STORIES 

first  was,  that,  as  a  general  rule,  the  larger  the  bodies 
were,  the  more  rapid  their  descent;  the  second,  that, 
between  two  masses  of  equal  extent,  the  one  spherical 
and  the  other  of  any  other  shape,  the  superiority  in 
speed  of  descent  was  with  the  sphere;  the  third,  that, 
between  two  masses  of  equal  size,  the  one  cylindrical 
and  the  other  of  any  other  shape,  the  cylinder  was  ab- 
sorbed the  more  slowly.  Since  my  escape,  I  have  had 
several  conversations  on  this  subject  with  an  old  school- 
master of  the  district ;  and  it  was  from  him  that  I  learned 
the  use  of  the  words  'cylinder'  and  'sphere.'  He  ex- 
plained to  me  —  although  I  have  forgotten  the  explana- 
tion —  how  what  I  observed  was,  in  fact,  the  natural 
consequence  of  the  forms  of  the  floating  fragments,  and 
showed  me  how  it  happened  that  a  cylinder  swimming 
in  a  vortex  offered  more  resistance  to  its  suction,  and 
was  drawn  in  with  greater  difficulty,  than  an  equally 
bulky  body  of  any  form  whatever. 

"There  was  one  startling  circumstance  which  went 
a  great  way  in  enforcing  these  observations,  and  ren- 
dering me  anxious  to  turn  them  to  account,  and  this 
was  that,  at  every  revolution,  we  passed  something  like 
a  barrel,  or  else  the  yard  or  the  mast  of  a  vessel;  while 
many  of  these  things,  which  had  been  on  our  level  when 
I  first  opened  my  eyes  upon  the  wonders  of  the  whirl- 
pool, were  now  high  up  above  us,  and  seemed  to  have 
moved  but  little  from  their  original  station. 

"  I  no  longer  hesitated  what  to  do.  I  resolved  to  lash 
myself  securely  to  the  water-cask  upon  which  I  now 
held,  to  cut  it  loose  from  the  counter,  and  to  throw 
myself  with  it  into  the  water.    I  attracted  my  brother's 

356 


A  DESCENT  INTO  THE   MAELSTROM 

attention  by  signs,  pointed  to  the  floating  barrels  that 
came  near  us,  and  did  everything  in  my  power  to  make 
him  understand  what  I  was  about  to  do.  I  thought  at 
length  that  he  comprehended  my  design;  but,  whether 
this  was  the  case  or  not,  he  shook  his  head  despairingly, 
and  refused  to  move  from  his  station  by  the  ring-bolt. 
It  was  impossible  to  reach  him;  the  emergency  admitted 
of  no  delay;  and  so,  with  a  bitter  struggle,  I  resigned 
him  to  his  fate,  fastened  myself  to  the  cask  by  means 
of  the  lashings  which  secured  it  to  the  counter,  and  pre- 
cipitated myself  with  it  into  the  sea,  without  another 
moment's  hesitation. 

"The  result  was  precisely  what  I  had  hoped  it  might 
be.  As  it  is  myself  who  now  tell  you  this  tale,  —  as  you 
see  that  I  did  escape,  and  as  you  are  already  in  posses- 
sion of  the  mode  in  which  this  escape  was  effected,  and 
must  therefore  anticipate  all  that  I  have  further  to  say, 
—  I  will  bring  my  story  quickly  to  conclusion.  It  might 
have  been  an  hour,  or  thereabout,  after  my  quitting 
the  smack,  when,  having  descended  to  a  vast  distance 
beneath  me,  it  made  three  or  four  wild  gyrations  in 
rapid  succession,  and,  bearing  my  loved  brother  with 
it,  plunged  headlong,  at  once  and  forever,  into  the  chaos 
of  foam  below.  The  barrel  to  which  I  was  attached  sunk 
very  little  farther  than  half  the  distance  between  the 
bottom  of  the  gulf  and  the  spot  at  which  I  leaped  over- 
board, before  a  great  change  took  place  in  the  char- 
acter of  the  whirlpool.  The  slope  of  the  sides  of  the 
vast  funnel  became  momently  less  and  less  steep.  The 
gyrations  of  the  whirl  grew  gradually  less  and  less  vio- 
lent By  degrees,  the  froth  and  the  rainbow  disappeared, 

357 


MODERN  STORIES 

and  the  bottom  of  the  gulf  seemed  slowly  to  uprise. 
The  sky  was  clear,  the  winds  had  gone  down,  and  the 
full  moon  was  setting  radiantly  in  the  west,  when  I  found 
myself  on  the  surface  of  the  ocean,  in  full  view  of  the 
shores  of  Lofoden,  and  above  the  spot  where  the  pool 
of  the  Moskoe-strom  had  been.  It  was  the  hour  of  the 
slack,  but  the  sea  still  heaved  in  mountainous  waves 
from  the  effects  of  the  hurricane.  I  was  borne  violently 
into  the  channel  of  the  strom,  and  in  a  few  minutes  was 
hurried  down  the  coast  into  the  'grounds'  of  the  fisher- 
men. A  boat  picked  me  up, — exhausted  from  fatigue, 
and  (now  that  the  danger  was  removed)  speechless  from 
the  memory  of  its  horror.  Those  who  drew  me  on 
board  were  my  old  mates  and  daily  companions,  but 
they  knew  me  no  more  than  they  would  have  known 
a  traveler  from  the  spirit  land.  My  hair,  which  had 
been  raven -black  the  day  before,  was  as  white  as  you 
see  it  now.  They  say,  too,  that  the  whole  expression 
of  my  countenance  had  changed.  I  told  them  my  story; 
they  did  not  believe  it.  I  now  tell  it  to  you,  and  I  can 
scarcely  expect  you  to  put  more  faith  in  it  than  did  the 
merry  fishermen  of  Lofoden." 


JOS  FIRST  STORY 

FROM  LITTLE  WOMEN 

By  Louisa  M.  Alcott 

JO  was  very  busy  in  the  garret,  for  the  October  days 
began  to  grow  chilly,  and  the  afternoons  were  short. 
For  two  or  three  hours  the  sun  lay  warmly  in  the  high 
window,  showing  Jo  seated  on  the  old  sofa,  writing 
busily,  with  her  papers  spread  out  upon  a  trunk  before 
her,  while  Scrabble,  the  pet  rat,  promenaded  the  beams 
overhead,  accompanied  by  his  oldest  son,  a  fine  young 
fellow,  who  was  evidently  very  proud  of  his  whiskers. 
Quite  absorbed  in  her  work,  Jo  scribbled  away  till  the 
last  page  was  filled,  when  she  signed  her  name  with  a 
flourish,  and  threw  down  her  pen,  exclaiming,  — 

"There,  I've  done  my  best!  If  this  won't  suit  I  shall 
have  to  wait  till  I  can  do  better." 

Lying  back  on  the  sofa,  she  read  the  manuscript  care- 
fully through,  making  dashes  here  and  there,  and  put- 
ting in  many  exclamation  points,  which  looked  like 
little  balloons ;  then  she  tied  it  up  wifh  a  smart  red  rib- 
bon, and  sat  a  minute  looking  at  it  with  a  sober,  wistful 
expression,  which  plainly  showed  how  earnest  her  work 
had  been.  Jo's  desk  up  here  was  an  old  tin  kitchen, 
which  hung  against  the  wall.  In  it  she  kept  her  papers 
and  a  few  books,  safely  shut  away  from  Scrabble,  who, 
being  likewise  of  a  literary  turn,  was  fond  of  making 

359 


MODERN  STORIES 

a  circulating  library  of  such  books  as  were  left  in  his 
way,  by  eating  the  leaves.  From  this  tin  receptacle  Jo 
produced  another  manuscript;  and,  putting  both  in  her 
pocket,  crept  quietly  downstairs,  leaving  her  friends  to 
nibble  her  pens  and  taste  her  ink. 

She  put  on  her  hat  and  jacket  as  noiselessly  as  pos- 
sible, and,  going  to  the  back  entry  window,  got  out  upon 
the  roof  of  a  low  porch,  swung  herself  down  to  the  grassy 
bank,  and  took  a  roundabout  way  to  the  road.  Once 
there,  she  composed  herself,  hailed  a  passing  omnibus, 
and  rolled  away  to  town,  looking  very  merry  and  mys- 
terious. 

If  any  one  had  been  watching  her,  he  would  have 
thought  her  movements  decidedly  peculiar;  for,  on 
alighting,  she  went  off  at  a  great  pace  till  she  reached 
a  certain  number  in  a  certain  busy  street;  having  found 
the  place  with  some  difficulty,  she  went  into  the  door- 
way, looked  up  the  dirty  stairs,  and,  after  standing  stock 
still  a  minute,  suddenly  dived  into  the  street,  and  walked 
away  as  rapidly  as  she  came.  This  manoeuvre  she  re- 
peated several  times,  to  the  great  amusement  of  a  black- 
eyed  young  gentleman  lounging  in  the  window  of  a 
building  opposite.  On  returning  for  the  third  time,  Jo 
gave  herself  a  shake,  pulled  her  hat  over  her  eyes,  and 
walked  up  the  stairs,  looking  as  if  she  were  going  to 
have  all  her  teeth  out. 

There  was  a  dentist's  sign,  among  others,  which 
adorned  the  entrance,  and,  after  staring  a  moment  at 
the  pair  of  artificial  jaws  which  slowly  opened  and  shut 
to  draw  attention  to  a  fine  set  of  teeth,  the  young  gen- 
tleman put  on  his  coat,  took  his  hat,  and  went  down 

380 


JO'S  FIRST  STORY 

to  post  himself  in  the  opposite  doorway,  saying,  with 
a  smile  and  a  shiver,  — 

"It's  like  her  .to  come  alone,  but  if  she  has  a  bad  time 
she'll  need  some  one  to  help  her  home." 

In  ten  minutes  Jo  came  running  downstairs  with  a 
very  red  face,  and  the  general  appearance  of  a  person 
who  had  just  passed  through  a  trying  ordeal  of  some 
sort.  When  she  saw  the  young  gentleman  she  looked 
anything  but  pleased,  and  passed  him  with  a  nod ;  but 
he  followed,  asking,  with  an  air  of  sympathy,  — 

"Did  you  have  a  bad  time?" 

"Not  very." 

"You  got  through  quickly." 

"Yes,  thank  goodness!" 

"Why  did  you  go  alone?" 

"Did  n't  want  any  one  to  know." 

"You're  the  oddest  fellow  I  ever  saw.  How  many 
did  you  have  out?" 

Jo  looked  at  her  friend  as  if  she  did  not  understand 
him;  then  began  to  laugh,  as  if  mightily  amused  at 
something. 

"There  are  two  which  I  want  to  have  come  out,  but 
I  must  wait  a  week." 

"What  are  you  laughing  at?  You  are  up  to  some 
mischief,  Jo,"  said  Laurie,  looking  mystified. 

"So  are  you.  What  were  you  doing,  sir,  up  in  that 
billiard  saloon  ?  " 

"Begging  your  pardon,  ma'am,  it  wasn't  a  billiard 
saloon,  but  a  gymnasium,  and  I  was  taking  a  lesson  in 
fencing." 

"I  'm  glad  of  that." 

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MODERN  STORIES 

"Why?" 

"You  can  teach  me,  and  then  when  we  play  *  Ham- 
let/ you  can  be  Laertes,  and  we'll  make  a  fine  thing 
of  the  fencing  scene." 

Laurie  burst  out  with  a  hearty  boy's  laugh,  which 
made  several  passers-by  smile  in  spite  of  themselves. 

"I'll  teach  you  whether  we  play  'Hamlet'  or  not; 
it's  grand  fun,  and  will  straighten  you  up  capitally. 
But  I  don't  believe  that  was  your  only  reason  for  saying 
'I'm  glad,'  in  that  decided  way;  was  it,  now?" 

"No,  I  was  glad  that  you  were  not  in  the  saloon,  be- 
cause I  hope  you  never  go  to  such  places.    Do  you  ?  " 

"Not  often." 

"I  wish  you  would  n't." 

"It's  no  harm,  Jo.  I  have  billiards  at  home,  but  it's 
no  fun  unless  you  have  good  players;  so,  as  I'm  fond 
of  it,  I  come  sometimes  and  have  a  game  with  Ned 
Moffat  or  some  of  the  other  fellows." 

"Oh  dear,  I'm  so  sorry,  for  you'll  get  to  liking  it 
better  and  better,  and  will  waste  time  and  money,  and 
grow  like  those  dreadful  boys.  I  did  hope  you'd  stay 
respectable,  and  be  a  satisfaction  to  your  friends,"  said 
Jo,  shaking  her  head. 

"Can't  a  fellow  take  a  little  innocent  amusement 
now  and  then  without  losing  his  respectability  ?  "  asked 
Laurie,  looking  nettled. 

"That  depends  upon  how  and  where  he  takes  it.  I 
don't  like  Ned  and  his  set,  and  wish  you'd  keep  out  of 
it.  Mother  won't  let  us  have  him  at  our  house,  though 
he  wants  to  come;  and  if  you  grow  like  him  she  won't 
be  willing  to  have  us  frolic  together  as  we  do  now." 

362 


JO'S  FIRST  STORY 

"Won't  she?"  asked  Laurie  anxiously. 

"No,  she  can't  bear  fashionable  young  men,  and  she  'd 
shut  us  all  up  in  bandboxes  rather  than  have  us  asso- 
ciate with  them." 

"Well,  she  need  n't  get  out  her  bandboxes  yet;  I'm 
not  a  fashionable  party,  and  don't  mean  to  be;  but  I 
do  like  harmless  larks  now  and  then,  don't  you?" 

"Yes,  nobody  minds  them,  so  lark  away,  but  don't 
get  wild,  will  you  ?  or  there  will  be  an  end  of  all  our 
good  times." 

"I'll  be  a  double-distilled  saint." 

"I  can't  bear  saints,  —  just  be  a  simple,  honest,  re- 
spectable boy,  and  we  '11  never  desert  you.  I  don't  know 
what  I  should  do  if  you  acted  like  Mr.  King's  son;  he 
had  plenty  of  money,  but  did  n't  know  how  to  spend  it, 
and  got  tipsy  and  gambled,  and  ran  away,  and  forged 
his  father's  name,  I  believe,  and  was  altogether  horrid." 

"You  think  I'm  likely  to  do  the  same?  Much 
obliged." 

"No,  I  don't  —  oh,  dear,  no!  —  but  I  hear  people 
talking  about  money  being  such  a  temptation,  and  I 
sometimes  wish  you  were  poor;  I  should  n't  worry  then." 

"Do  you  worry  about  me,  Jo?" 

"A  little,  when  you  look  moody  or  discontented,  as 
you  sometimes  do;  for  you've  got  such  a  strong  will,  if 
you  once  get  started  wrong,  I  'm  afraid  it  would  be  hard 
to  stop  you." 

Laurie  walked  in  silence  a  few  minutes,  and  Jo 
watched  him,  wishing  she  had  held  her  tongue,  for  his 
eyes  looked  angry,  though  his  lips  still  smiled  as  if  at 
her  warnings. 

363 


MODERN   STORIES 

"Are  you  going  to  deliver  lectures  all  the  way  home  ?" 
he  asked  presently. 

"Of  course  not;  why?" 

"Because  if  you  are,  I'll  take  a  'bus;  if  you  are  not, 
I'd  like  to  walk  with  you,  and  tell  you  something  very 
interesting." 

"I  won't  preach  any  more,  and  I'd  like  to  hear  the 
news  immensely." 

"Very  well,  then;  come  on.  It's  a  secret,  and  if  I  tell 
you,  you  must  tell  me  yours." 

"I  have  n't  got  any,"  began  Jo,  but  stopped  suddenly, 
remembering  that  she  had. 

"You  know  you  have, — you  can't  hide  anything; 
so  up  and  'fess,  or  I  won't  tell,"  cried  Laurie. 

"Is  your  secret  a  nice  one?" 

"Oh,  isn't  it!  all  about  people  you  know,  and  such 
fun !  You  ought  to  hear  it,  and  I  've  been  aching  to  tell 
it  this  long  time.    Come,  you  begin." 

"You  '11  not  say  anything  about  it  at  home,  will  you  ? " 

"Not  a  word." 

"And  you  won't  tease  me  in  private?" 

"I  never  tease." 

"Yes,  you  do;  you  get  everything  you  want  out  of 
people.  I  don't  know  how  you  do  it,  but  you  are  a 
born  wheedler." 

"Thank  you;  fire  away." 

"Well,  I've  left  two  stories  with  a  newspaper  man, 
and  he's  to  give  his  answer  next  week,"  whispered  Jo, 
in  her  confidant's  ear. 

"Hurrah  for  Miss  March,  the  celebrated  American 
authoress!"  cried   Laurie,   throwing   up   his   hat   and 

364 


JO'S  FIRST  STORY 

catching  it  again,  to  the  great  delight  of  two  ducks, 
four  cats,  five  hens,  and  half  a  dozen  Irish  children ;  for 
they  were  out  of  the  city  now. 

"Hush!  It  won't  come  to  anything,  I  dare  say;  but 
I  could  n't  rest  till  I  had  tried,  and  I  said  nothing 
about  it,  because  I  did  n't  want  any  one  else  to  be 
disappointed." 

"It  won't  fail.  Why,  Jo,  your  stories  are  works  of 
Shakespeare,  compared  to  half  the  rubbish  that  is  pub- 
lished every  day.  Won't  it  be  fun  to  see  them  in  print; 
and  shan't  we  feel  proud  of  our  authoress?" 

Jo's  eyes  sparkled,  for  it  is  always  pleasant  to  be  be- 
lieved in;  and  a  friend's  praise  is  always  sweeter  than  a 
dozen  newspaper  puffs. 

"Where 's  your  secret  ?  Play  fair,  Teddy,  or  I'll  never 
believe  you  again,"  she  said,  trying  to  extinguish  the 
brilliant  hopes  that  blazed  up  at  a  word  of  encourage- 
ment. 

"I  may  get  into  a  scrape  for  telling;  but  I  did  n't 
promise  not  to,  so  I  will,  for  I  never  feel  easy  in  my 
mind  till  I've  told  you  any  plummy  bit  of  news  I  get. 
I  know  where  Meg's  glove  is." 

"Is  that  all?"  said  Jo,  looking  disappointed,  as 
Laurie  nodded  and  twinkled,  with  a  face  full  of  mys- 
terious intelligence. 

"It's  quite  enough  for  the  present,  as  you'll  agree 
when  I  tell  you  where  it  is." 

"Tell,  then." 

Laurie  bent,  and  whispered  three  words  in  Jo's  ear, 
which  produced  a  comical  change.  She  stood  and  stared 
at  him  for  a  minute,  looking  both  surprised  and  dis- 

365 


MODERN  STORIES 

pleased,  then  walked  on,  saying  sharply,  "How  do  you 
know  ?" 

"Saw  it." 

"Where?" 

"Pocket." 

"All  this  time?" 

"Yes;  is  n't  that  romantic?" 

"No,  it's  horrid." 

"Don't  you  like  it?" 

"Of  course  I  don't.  It's  ridiculous;  it  won't  be 
allowed.    My  patience!  what  would  Meg  say?" 

"You  are  not  to  tell  any  one;  mind  that." 

"I  did  n't  promise." 

"That  was  understood,  and  I  trusted  you." 

"Well,  I  won't  for  the  present,  anyway;  but  I  'm 
disgusted,  and  wish  you  had  n't  told  me." 

"I  thought  you'd  be  pleased." 

"At  the  idea  of  anybody  coming  to  take  Meg  away  ? 
No,  thank  you." 

"You'll  feel  better  about  it  when  somebody  comes 
to  take  you  away." 

"I  'd  like  to  see  any  one  try  it,"  cried  Jo  fiercely. 

"So  should  I!"  and  Laurie  chuckled  at  the  idea. 

"I  don't  think  secrets  agree  with  me;  I  feel  rumpled 
up  in  my  mind  since  you  told  me  that,"  said  Jo,  rather 
ungratefully. 

"  Race  down  this  hill  with  me,  and  you  '11  be  all  right," 
suggested  Laurie. 

No  one  was  in  sight;  the  smooth  road  sloped  in- 
vitingly before  her;  and  finding  the  temptation  irre- 
sistible, Jo  darted  away,  soon  leaving  hat  and  comb 

366 


JO'S  FIRST  STORY 

behind  her,  and  scattering  hair-pins  as  she  ran.  Laurie 
reached  the  goal  first,  and  was  quite  satisfied  with  the 
success  of  his  treatment;  for  his  Atalanta  came  panting 
up,  with  flying  hair,  bright  eyes,  ruddy  cheeks,  and  no 
signs  of  dissatisfaction  in  her  face. 

"I  wish  I  was  a  horse;  then  I  could  run  for  miles  in 
this  splendid  air,  and  not  lose  my  breath.  It  was  cap- 
ital; but  see  what  a  guy  it's  made  me.  Go,  pick  up  my 
things,  like  a  cherub  as  you  are,"  said  Jo,  dropping 
down  under  a  maple  tree,  which  was  carpeting  the  bank 
with  crimson  leaves. 

Laurie  leisurely  departed  to  recover  the  lost  property, 
and  Jo  bundled  up  her  braids,  hoping  no  one  would 
pass  by  till  she  was  tidy  again.  But  some  one  did  pass, 
and  who  should  it  be  b^t  Meg,  looking  particularly 
ladylike  in  her  state  and  festival  suit,  for  she  had  been 
making  calls. 

"What  in  the  world  are  you  doing  here  ?"  she  asked, 
regarding  her  disheveled  sister  with  well-bred  sur- 
prise. 

"Getting  leaves,"  meekly  answered  Jo,  sorting  the 
rosy  handful  she  had  just  swept  up. 

"And  hair-pins,"  added  Laurie,  throwing  half  a 
dozen  into  Jo's  lap.  "They  grow  on  this  road,  Meg; 
so  do  combs  and  brown  straw  hats." 

'You  have  been  running,  Jo;  how  could  you  ?  When 
will  you  stop  such  romping  ways?"  said  Meg  reprov- 
ingly, as  she  settled  her  cuffs,  and  smoothed  her  hair, 
with  which  the  wind  had  taken  liberties. 

"Never  till  I 'm  stiff  and  old,  and  have  to  use  a  crutch. 
Don't  try  to  make  me  grow  up  before  my  time,  Meg: 

367 


MODERN   STORIES 

it's  hard  enough  to  have  you  change  all  of  a  sudden; 
let  me  be  a  little  girl  as  long  as  I  can." 

As  she  spoke,  Jo  bent  over  the  leaves  to  hide  the  trem- 
bling of  her  lips;  for  lately  she  had  felt  that  Margaret 
was  fast  getting  to  be  a  woman,  and  Laurie's  secret 
made  her  dread  the  separation  which  must  surely  come 
some  time,  and  now  seemed  very  near.  He  saw  the 
trouble  in  her  face,  and  drew  Meg's  attention  from  it 
by  asking  quickly,  "Where  have  you  been  calling,  all 
so  fine  ?  " 

"At  the  Gardiners',  and  Sallie  has  been  telling  me 
all  about  Belle  Moffat's  wedding.  It  was  very  splendid, 
and  they  have  gone  to  spend  the  winter  in  Paris.  Just 
think  how  delightful  that  must  be!" 

"Do  you  envy  her,  Meg?'^  said  Laurie. 

"I'm  afraid  I  do." 

"I'm  glad  of  it!"  muttered  Jo,  tying  on  her  hat  with 
a  jerk. 

"Why?"  asked  Meg,  looking  surprised. 

"Because  if  you  care  much  about  riches,  you  will 
never  go  and  marry  a  poor  man,"  said  Jo,  frowning 
at  Laurie,  who  was  mutely  warning  her  to  mind  what 
she  said. 

"I  shall  never  'go  and  marry'  any  one,"  observed 
Meg,  walking  on  with  great  dignity,  while  the  others 
followed,  laughing,  whispering,  skipping  stones,  and 
"  behaving  like  children,"  as  Meg  said  to  herself,  though 
she  might  have  been  tempted  to  join  them  if  she  had 
not  had  her  best  dress  on. 

For  a  week  or  two,  Jo  behaved  so  queerly  that  her 
sisters  were  quite  bewildered.    She  rushed  to  the  door 

368 


JO'S  FIRST  STORY 

when  the  postman  rang ;  was  rude  to  Mr.  Brooke  when- 
ever they  met;  would  sit  looking  at  Meg  with  a  woe- 
begone face,  occasionally  jumping  up  to  shake,  and  then 
to  kiss  her,  in  a  very  mysterious  manner;  Laurie  and 
she  were  always  making  signs  to  one  another,  and  talk- 
ing about  "Spread  Eagles,"  till  the  girls  declared  they 
had  both  lost  their  wits.  On  the  second  Saturday  after 
Jo  got  out  of  the  window,  Meg,  as  she  sat  sewing  at  her 
window,  was  scandalized  by  the  sight  of  Laurie  chas- 
ing Jo  all  over  the  garden,  and  finally  capturing  her  in 
Amy's  bower.  What  went  on  there,  Meg  could  not  see; 
but  shrieks  of  laughter  were  heard,  followed  by  the 
murmur  of  voices  and  a  great  flapping  of  newspapers. 

"  What  shall  we  do  with  that  girl  ?  She  never  will 
behave  like  a  young  lady,"  sighed  Meg,  as  she  watched 
the  race  with  a  disapproving  face. 

"I  hope  she  won't;  she  is  so  funny  and  dear  as  she 
is,"  said  Beth,  who  had  never  betrayed  that  she  was  a 
little  hurt  at  Jo's  having  secrets  with  any  one  but  her. 

"  It 's  very  trying,  but  we  never  can  make  her  commy 
lafo,"  added  Amy,  who  sat  making  some  new  frills  for 
herself,  with  her  curls  tied  up  in  a  very  becoming  way,  — 
two  agreeable  things,  which  made  her  feel  unusually 
elegant  and  ladylike. 

In  a  few  minutes  Jo  bounced  in,  laid  herself  on  the 
sofa,  and  affected  to  read. 

"  Have  you  anything  interesting  there  ? "  asked  Meg, 
with  condescension. 

"Nothing  but  a  story;  won't  amount  to  much,  I 
guess,"  returned  Jo,  carefully  keeping  the  name  of  the 
paper  out  of  sight. 

369 


MODERN  STORIES 

"You'd  better  read  it  aloud;  that  will  amuse  us 
and  keep  you  out  of  mischief,"  said  Amy,  in  her  most 
grown-up  tone. 

"  What 's  the  name  ?  "  asked  Beth,  wondering  why  Jo 
kept  her  face  behind  the  sheet. 

"The  Rival  Painters." 

"That  sounds  well;  read  it,"  said  Meg. 

With  a  loud  "Hem!"  and  a  long  breath,  Jo  began 
to  read  very  fast.  The  girls  listened  with  interest,  for 
the  tale  was  romantic,  and  somewhat  pathetic,  as  most 
of  the  characters  died  in  the  end. 

"I  like  that  about  the  splendid  picture,"  was  Amy's 
approving  remark,  as  Jo  paused. 

"I  prefer  the  lovering  part.  Viola  and  Angelo  are 
two  of  our  favorite  names ;  is  n't  that  queer  ? "  said 
Meg,  wiping  her  eyes,  for  the  "lovering  part"  was 
tragical. 

"  Who  wrote  it  ? "  asked  Beth,  who  had  caught  a 
glimpse  of  Jo's  face. 

The  reader  suddenly  sat  up,  cast  away  the  paper, 
displaying  a  flushed  countenance,  and,  with  a  funny 
mixture  of  solemnity  and  excitement,  replied  in  a  loud 
voice,  "Your  sister." 

"  You  ?  "  cried  Meg,  dropping  her  work. 

"  It 's  very  good,"  said  Amy  critically. 

"  I  knew  it !  I  knew  it !  Oh,  my  Jo,  I  am  so  proud ! " 
and  Beth  ran  to  hug  her  sister,  and  exult  over  this  splen- 
did success. 

Dear  me,  how  delighted  they  all  were,  to  be  sure? 
how  Meg  would  n't  believe  it  till  she  saw  the  words, 
"  Miss  Josephine  March,"  actually  printed  in  the  paper; 

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JO'S  FIRST  STORY 

how  graciously  Amy  criticised  the  artistic  parts  of  the 
story,  and  offered  hints  for  a  sequel,  which  unfortu- 
nately could  n't  be  carried  out,  as  the  hero  and  heroine 
were  dead;  how  Beth  got  excited,  and  skipped  and  sung 
with  joy ;  how  Hannah  came  in  to  exclaim  "  Sakes  alive, 
well  I  never!"  in  great  astonishment  at  "that  Jo's 
doin's;"  how  proud  Mrs.  March  was  when  she  knew 
it;  how  Jo  laughed,  with  tears  in  her  eyes,  as  she  de- 
clared she  might  as  well  be  a  peacock  and  done  with  it; 
and  how  the  "  Spread  Eagle  "  might  be  said  to  flap  his 
wings  triumphantly  over  the  House  of  March,  as  the 
paper  passed  from  hand  to  hand. 

"  Tell  us  all  about  it."  "  When  did  it  come  ? "  "  How 
much  did  you  get  for  it  ? "     "  What  will  father  say  ?  " 

"  Won't  Laurie  laugh  ? "  cried  the  family,  all  in  one 
breath,  as  they  clustered  about  Jo;  for  these  foolish, 
affectionate  people  made  a  jubilee  of  every  little  house- 
hold joy. 

"Stop  jabbering,  girls,  and  I'll  tell  you  everything," 
said  Jo,  wondering  if  Miss  Burney  felt  any  grander 
over  her  "Evelina"  than  she  did  over  her  "Rival 
Painters."  Having  told  how  she  disposed  of  her  tales, 
Jo  added,  "  And  when  I  went  to  get  my  answer,  the  man 
said  he  liked  them  both,  but  did  n't  pay  beginners,  only 
let  them  print  in  his  paper,  and  noticed  the  stories.  It 
was  good  practice,  he  said;  and  when  the  beginners 
improved,  any  one  would  pay.  So  I  let  him  have  the 
two  stories,  and  to-day  this  was  sent  to  me,  and  Laurie 
caught  me  with  it,  and  insisted  on  seeing  it,  so  I  let  him ; 
and  he  said  it  was  good,  and  I  shall  write  more,  and 
he 's  going  to  get  the  next  paid  for,  and  I  am  so  happy, 

371 


MODERN  STORIES 

for  in  time  I  may  be  able  to  support  myself  and  help 
the  girls." 

Jo's  breath  gave  out  here;  and,  wrapping  her  head 
in  the  paper,  she  bedewed  her  little  story  with  a  few 
natural  tears ;  for  to  be  independent  and  earn  the  praise 
of  those  she  loved  were  the  dearest  wishes  of  her  heart, 
and  this  seemed  to  be  the  first  step  toward  that  happy 
end. 


THE  PETERKINS  ARE  OBLIGED 
TO  MOVE 

FROM  THE  PETERKIN  PAPERS 

By  Lucretia  P.  Hale 

AGAMEMNON  had  long  felt  it  an  impropriety 
to  live  in  a  house  that  was  called  a  "semi-de- 
tached "  house,  when  there  was  no  other  "  semi "  to  it. 
It  had  always  remained  wholly  detached,  as  the  owner 
had  never  built  the  other  half.  Mrs.  Peterkin  felt  this 
was  not  a  sufficient  reason  for  undertaking  the  terrible 
process  of  a  move  to  another  house,  when  they  were 
fully  satisfied  with  the  one  they  were  in. 

But  a  more  powerful  reason  forced  them  to  go.  The 
track  of  a  new  railroad  had  to  be  carried  directly  through 
the  place,  and  a  station  was  to  be  built  on  that  very 
spot. 

Mrs.  Peterkin  so  much  dreaded  moving  that  she  ques- 
tioned whether  they  could  not  continue  to  live  in  the 
upper  part  of  the  house  and  give  up  the  lower  part  to 
the  station,  They  could  then  dine  at  the  restaurant, 
and  it  would  be  very  convenient  about  traveling,  as 
there  would  be  no  danger  of  missing  the  train,  if  one 
were  sure  of  the  direction. 

But  when  the  track  was  actually  laid  by  the  side  of 
the  house,  and  the  steam-engine  of  the  construction 

373 


MODERN  STORIES 

train  puffed  and  screamed  under  the  dining-room  win- 
dows, and  the  engineer  calmly  looked  in  to  see  what 
the  family  had  for  dinner,  she  felt,  indeed,  that  they 
must  move. 

But  where  should  they  go  ?  It  was  difficult  to  find 
a  house  that  satisfied  the  whole  family.  One  was  too 
far  off,  and  looked  into  a  tan-pit ;  another  was  too  much 
in  the  middle  of  the  town,  next  door  to  a  machine-shop. 
Elizabeth  Eliza  wanted  a  porch  covered  with  vines, 
that  should  face  the  sunset;  while  Mr.  Peterkin  thought 
it  would  not  be  convenient  to  sit  there  looking  towards 
the  west  in  the  late  afternoon  (which  was  his  only  lei- 
sure time),  for  the  sun  would  shine  in  his  face.  The 
little  boys  wanted  a  house  with  a  great  many  doors, 
so  that  they  could  go  in  and  out  often.  But  Mr.  Peter- 
kin  did  not  like  so  much  slamming,  and  felt  there  was 
more  danger  of  burglars  with  so  many  doors.  Agamem- 
non wanted  an  observatory,  and  Solomon  John  a  shed 
for  a  workshop.  If  he  could  have  carpenters'  tools  and 
a  workbench  he  could  build  an  observatory,  if  it  were 
wanted. 

But  it  was  necessary  to  decide  upon  something,  for 
they  must  leave  their  house  directly.  So  they  were 
obliged  to  take  Mr.  Finch's,  at  the  Corners.  It  satisfied 
none  of  the  family.  The  porch  was  a  piazza,  and  was 
opposite  a  barn.  There  were  three  other  doors,  —  too 
many  to  please  Mr.  Peterkin,  and  not  enough  for  the 
little  boys.  There  was  no  observatory,  and  nothing  to 
observe  if  there  were  one,  as  the  house  was  too  low, 
and  some  high  trees  shut  out  any  view.  Elizabeth  Eliza 
Iiad  hoped  for  a  view;  but  Mr.  Peterkin  consoled  her 

374 


THE  PETERKINS  MOVE 

by  deciding  it  was  more  healthy  to  have  to  walk  for  a 
view,  and  Mrs.  Peterkin  agreed  that  they  might  get 
tired  of  the  same  every  day. 

And  everybody  was  glad  a  selection  was  made,  and 
the  little  boys  carried  their  india-rubber  boots  the  very 
first  afternoon. 

Elizabeth  Eliza  wanted  to  have  some  system  in  the 
moving,  and  spent  the  evening  in  drawing  up  a  plan. 
It  would  be  easy  to  arrange  everything  beforehand,  so 
that  there  should  not  be  the  confusion  that  her  mother 
dreaded,  and  the  discomfort  they  had  in  their  last  move. 
Mrs.  Peterkin  shook  her  head;  she  did  not  think  it  pos- 
sible to  move  with  any  comfort.  Agamemnon  said  a 
great  deal  could  be  done  with  a  list  and  a  programme. 

Elizabeth  Eliza  declared  if  all  were  well  arranged  a 
programme  would  make  it  perfectly  easy.  They  were 
to  have  new  parlor  carpets,  which  could  be  put  down 
in  the  new  house  the  first  thing.  Then  the  parlor  fur- 
niture could  be  moved  in,  and  there  would  be  two  com- 
fortable rooms,  in  which  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Peterkin  could 
sit  while  the  rest  of  the  move  went  on.  Then  the  old 
parlor  carpets  could  be  taken  up  for  the  new  dining- 
room  and  the  downstairs  bedroom,  and  the  family  could 
meanwhile  dine  at  the  old  house.  Mr.  Peterkin  did  not 
object  to  this,  though  the  distance  was  considerable,  as 
he  felt  exercise  would  be  good  for  them  all.  Elizabeth 
Eliza's  programme  then  arranged  that  the  dining-room 
furniture  should  be  moved  the  third  day,  by  which  time 
one  of  the  old  parlor  carpets  would  be  down  in  the  new 
dining-room,  and  they  could  still  sleep  in  the  old  house. 
Thus  there  would  always  be  a  quiet,  comfortable  place 

375 


MODERN  STORIES 

in  one  house  or  the  other.  Each  night,  when  Mr.  Peter- 
kin  came  home,  he  would  find  some  place  for  quiet 
thought  and  rest,  and  each  day  there  should  be  moved 
only  the  furniture  needed  for  a  certain  room.  Great 
confusion  would  be  avoided  and  nothing  misplaced. 
Elizabeth  Eliza  wrote  these  last  words  at  the  head  of 
her  programme,  —  "Misplace  nothing."  And  Agamem- 
non made  a  copy  of  the  programme  for  each  member 
of  the  family. 

The  first  thing  to  be  done  was  to  buy  the  parlor  car- 
pets. Elizabeth  Eliza  had  already  looked  at  some  in 
Boston,  and  the  next  morning  she  went,  by  an  early 
train,  with  her  father,  Agamemnon,  and  Solomon  John, 
to  decide  upon  them. 

They  got  home  about  eleven  o'clock,  and  when  they 
reached  the  house  were  dismayed  to  find  two  furniture 
wagons  in  front  of  the  gate,  already  partly  filled !  Mrs. 
Peterkin  was  walking  in  and  out  of  the  open  door,  a 
large  book  in  one  hand,  and  a  duster  in  the  other,  and 
she  came  to  meet  them  in  an  agony  of  anxiety.  What 
should  they  do  ?  The  furniture  carts  had  appeared 
soon  after  the  rest  had  left  for  Boston,  and  the  men  had 
insisted  upon  beginning  to  move  the  things.  In  vain 
had  she  shown  Elizabeth  Eliza's  programme;  in  vain 
had  she  insisted  they  must  take  only  the  parlor"  furni- 
ture. They  had  declared  they  must  put  the  heavy  pieces 
in  the  bottom  of  the  cart,  and  the  lighter  furniture  on 
top.  So  she  had  seen  them  go  into  every  room  in  the 
house,  and  select  one  piece  of  furniture  after  another, 
without  even  looking  at  Elizabeth  Eliza's  programme; 
she  doubted  if  they  could  read  it  if  they  had  looked  at  it. 

376 


THE  PETERKINS  MOVE 

Mr.  Peterkin  had  ordered  the  carters  to  come;  but 
he  had  no  idea  they  would  come  so  early,  and  supposed 
it  would  take  them  a  long  time  to  fill  the  carts. 

But  they  had  taken  the  dining-room  sideboard  first, 
—  a  heavy  piece  of  furniture,  —  and  all  its  contents 
were  now  on  the  dining-room  tables.  Then,  indeed, 
they  selected  the  parlor  bookcase,  but  had  set  every 
book  on  the  floor.  The  men  had  told  Mrs.  Peterkin 
they  would  put  the  books  in  the  bottom  of  the  cart, 
very  much  in  the  order  they  were  taken  from  the  shelves. 
But  by  this  time  Mrs.  Peterkin  was  considering  the 
carters  as  natural  enemies,  and  dared  not  trust  them; 
besides,  the  books  ought  all  to  be  dusted.  So  she  was 
now  holding  one  of  the  volumes  of  Agamemnon's  En- 
cyclopaedia, with  difficulty,  in  one  hand,  while  she  was 
dusting  it  with  the  other.  Elizabeth  Eliza  was  in  dis- 
may. At  this  moment  four  men  were  bringing  down  a 
large  chest  of  drawers  from  her  father's  room,  and  they 
called  to  her  to  stand  out  of  the  way.  The  parlors  were 
a  scene  of  confusion.  In  dusting  the  books  Mrs.  Peter- 
kin neglected  to  restore  them  to  the  careful  rows  in 
which  they  were  left  by  the  men,  and  they  lay  in  hope- 
less masses  in  different  parts  of  the  room.  Elizabeth 
Eliza  sunk  in  despair  upon  the  end  of  a  sofa. 

"  It.  would  have  been  better  to  buy  the  red  and  blue 
carpet,"  said  Solomon  John. 

"Is  not  the  carpet  bought?"  exclaimed  Mrs.  Peter- 
kin. And  then  they  were  obliged  to  confess  they  had 
been  unable  to  decide  upon  one,  and  had  come  back 
to  consult  Mrs.  Peterkin. 

"What  shall  we  do?"  asked  Mrs.  Peterkin. 

377 


MODERN  STORIES 

Elizabeth  Eliza  rose  from  the  sofa  and  went  to  the 
door,  saying,  "  I  shall  be  back  in  a  moment." 

Agamemnon  slowly  passed  round  the  room,  collect- 
ing the  scattered  volumes  of  his  Encyclopaedia.  Mr. 
Peterkin  offered  a  helping  hand  to  a  man  lifting  a  ward- 
robe. 

Elizabeth  Eliza  soon  returned.  "I  did  not  like  to  go 
and  ask  her.  But  I  felt  that  I  must  in  such  an  emer- 
gency. I  explained  to  her  the  whole  matter,  and  she 
thinks  we  should  take  the  carpet  at  Makillan's." 

"  Makillan's  "  was  a  store  in  the  village,  and  the  car- 
pet was  the  only  one  all  the  family  had  liked  without 
any  doubt;  but  they  had  supposed  they  might  prefer 
one  from  Boston. 

The  moment  was  a  critical  one.  Solomon  John  was 
sent  directly  to  Makillan's  to  order  the  carpet  to  be  put 
down  that  very  day.  But  where  should  they  dine  ?  where 
should  they  have  their  supper  ?  and  where  was  Mr. 
Peterkin's  "quiet  hour"  ?  Elizabeth  Eliza  was  frantic; 
the  dining-room  floor  and  table  were  covered  with 
things. 

It  was  decided  that  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Peterkin  should 
dine  at  the  Brom wicks ',  who  had  been  most  neighborly 
in  their  offers,  and  the  rest  should  get  something  to  eat 
at  the  baker's. 

Agamemnon  and  Elizabeth  Eliza  hastened  away  to 
be  ready  to  receive  the  carts  at  the  other  house,  and 
direct  the  furniture  as  they  could.  After  all,  there  was 
something  exhilarating  in  this  opening  of  the  new  house, 
and  in  deciding  where  things  should  go.  Gayly  Eliza- 
beth Eliza  stepped  down  the  front  garden  of  the  new 

378 


THE  PETERKINS  MOVE 

home,  and  across  the  piazza,  and  to  the  door.  But  it 
was  locked,  and  she  had  no  keys! 

"  Agamemnon,  did  you  bring  the  keys  ? "  she  ex- 
claimed. 

No,  he  had  not  seen  them  since  the  morning,  —  when 
—  ah !  —  yes,  the  little  boys  were  allowed  to  go  to  the 
house  for  their  india-rubber  boots,  as  there  was  a  threat- 
ening of  rain.  Perhaps  they  had  left  some  door  un- 
fastened —  perhaps  they  had  put  the  keys  under  the 
door-mat.  No,  each  door,  each  window,  was  solidly 
closed,  and  there  was  no  mat! 

"I  shall  have  to  go  to  the  school  to  see  if  they  took 
the  keys  with  them,"  said  Agamemnon,  "or  else  go 
home  to  see  if  they  left  them  there."  The  school  was 
in  a  different  direction  from  the  house,  and  far  at  the 
other  end  of  the  town;  for  Mr.  Peterkin  had  not  yet 
changed  the  boys'  school,  as  he  proposed  to  do  after 
their  move. 

"That  will  be  the  only  way,"  said  Elizabeth  Eliza; 
for  it  had  been  arranged  that  the  little  boys  should  take 
their  lunch  to  school,  and  not  come  home  at  noon. 

She  sat  down  on  the  steps  to  wait,  but  only  for  a  mo- 
ment, for  the  carts  soon  appeared,  turning  the  corner. 
What  should  be  done  with  the  furniture  ?  Of  course  the 
carters  must  wait  for  the  keys,  as  she  should  need  them 
to  set  the  furniture  up  in  the  right  places.  But  they 
could  not  stop  for  this.  They  put  it  down  upon  the 
piazza,  on  the  steps,  in  the  garden,  and  Elizabeth  Eliza 
saw  how  incongruous  it  was!  There  was  something 
from  every  room  in  the  house!  Even  the  large  family 
chest,  which  had  proved  too  heavy  for  them  to  travel 

379 


MODERN  STORIES 

with,  had  come  down  from  the  attic,  and  stood  against 
the  front  door. 

And  Solomon  John  appeared  with  the  carpet  woman, 
and  a  boy  with  a  wheelbarrow,  bringing  the  new  car- 
pet. And  all  stood  and  waited.  Some  opposite  neighbors 
appeared  to  offer  advice  and  look  on,  and  Elizabeth 
Eliza  groaned  inwardly  that  only  the  shabbiest  of  their 
furniture  appeared  to  be  standing  full  in  view. 

It  seemed  ages  before  Agamemnon  returned,  and  no 
wonder;  for  he  had  been  to  the  house,  then  to  the  school, 
then  back  to  the  house,  for  one  of  the  little  boys  had  left 
the  keys  at  home,  in  the  pocket  of  his  clothes.  Mean- 
while the  carpet  woman  had  waited,  and  the  boy  with 
the  wheelbarrow  had  waited,  and  when  they  got  in  they 
found  the  parlor  must  be  swept  and  cleaned.  So  the 
carpet  woman  went  off  in  dudgeon,  for  she  was  sure 
there  would  not  be  time  enough  to  do  anything. 

And  one  of  the  carts  came  again,  and  in  their  hurry 
the  men  set  the  furniture  down  anywhere.  Elizabeth 
Eliza  was  hoping  to  make  a  little  place  in  the  dining- 
room,  where  they  might  have  their  supper,  and  go  home 
to  sleep.  But  she  looked  out,  and  there  were  the  carters 
bringing  the  bedsteads,  and  proceeding  to  carry  them 
upstairs. 

In  despair  Elizabeth  Eliza  went  back  to  the  old  house. 
If  she  had  been  there  she  might  have  prevented  this. 
She  found  Mrs.  Peterkin  in  an  agony  about  the  entry 
oil-cloth.  It  had  been  made  in  the  house,  and  how  could 
it  be  taken  out  of  the  house  ?  Agamemnon  made  mea- 
surements; it  certainly  could  not  go  out  of  the  front 
door!    He  suggested  it  might  be  left  till  the  house  was 

380 


THE  PETERKINS  MOVE 

pulled  down,  when  it  could  easily  be  moved  out  of  one 
side.  But  Elizabeth  Eliza  reminded  him  that  the  whole 
house  was  to  be  moved  without  being  taken  apart 
Perhaps  it  could  be  cut  in  strips  narrow  enough  to  go 
out.  One  of  the  men  loading  the  remaining  cart  dis- 
posed of  the  question  by  coming  in  and  rolling  up  the 
oil-cloth  and  carrying  it  off  on  top  of  his  wagon. 

Elizabeth  Eliza  felt  she  must  hurry  back  to  the  new 
house.  But  what  should  they  do  ?  —  no  beds  here,  no 
carpets  there!  The  dining-room  table  and  sideboard 
were  at  the  other  house,  the  plates,  and  forks,  and  spoons 
here.  In  vain  she  looked  at  her  programme.  It  was 
all  reversed;  everything  was  misplaced.  Mr.  Peterkin 
would  suppose  they  were  to  eat  here  and  sleep  here, 
and  what  had  become  of  the  little  boys  ? 

Meanwhile  the  man  with  the  first  cart  had  returned. 
They  fell  to  packing  the  dining-room  china. 

They  were  up  in  the  attic,  they  were  down  in  the 
cellar.  One  even  suggested  to  take  the  tacks  out  of  the 
parlor  carpets,  as  they  should  want  to  take  them  next. 
Mrs.  Peterkin  sunk  upon  a  kitchen  chair. 

"Oh,  I  wish  we  had  decided  to  stay  and  be  moved 
in  the  house!"  she  exclaimed. 

Solomon  John  urged  his  mother  to  go  to  the  new 
house,  for  Mr.  Peterkin  would  be  there  for  his  "quiet 
hour."  And  when  the  carters  at  last  appeared,  carry- 
ing the  parlor  carpets  on  their  shoulders,  she  sighed  and 
said,  "  There  is  nothing  left,"  and  meekly  consented  to 
be  led  away. 

They  reached  the  new  house  to  find  Mr.  Peterkin 
sitting  calmly  in  a  rocking-chair  on  the  piazza,  watching 

381 


MODERN  STORIES 

the  oxen  coming  into  the  opposite  barn.  He  was  wait- 
ing for  the  keys,  which  Solomon  John  had  taken  back 
with  him.  The  little  boys  were  in  a  horse-chestnut  tree, 
at  the  side  of  the  house. 

Agamemnon  opened  the  door.  The  passages  were 
crowded  with  furniture,  the  floors  were  strewn  with 
books;  the  bureau  was  upstairs  that  was  to  stand  in  a 
lower  bedroom ;  there  was  not  a  place  to  lay  a  table,  — 
there  was  nothing  to  lay  upon  it;  for  the  knives  and 
plates  and  spoons  had  not  come,  and  although  the  tables 
were  there  they  were  covered  with  chairs  and  boxes. 

At  this  moment  came  a  covered  basket  from  the  lady 
from  Philadelphia.  It  contained  a  choice  supper,  and 
forks  and  spoons,  and  at  the  same  moment  appeared 
a  pot  of  hot  tea  from  an  opposite  neighbor.  They  placed 
all  this  on  the  back  of  a  bookcase  lying  upset,  and  sat 
around  it.  Solomon  John  came  rushing  in  from  the 
gate. 

"The  last  load  is  coming!  We  are  all  moved!"  he 
exclaimed;  and  the  little  boys  joined  in  a  chorus,  "We 
are  moved!  we  are  moved!" 

Mrs.  Peterkin  looked  sadly  around;  the  kitchen  uten- 
sils were  lying  on  the  parlor  lounge,  and  an  old  family 
gun  on  Elizabeth  Eliza's  hat-box.  The  parlor  clock 
stood  on  a  barrel;  some  coal-scuttles  had  been  placed 
on  the  parlor  table;  a  bust  of  Washington  stood  in  the 
doorway,  and  the  looking-glasses  leaned  against  the  pil- 
lars of  the  piazza.  But  they  were  moved !  Mrs.  Peterkin 
felt,  indeed,  that  they  were  very  much  moved. 


MISS  BEITLAH'S  BONNET 

By  Rose  Terry  Cooke 

I  DON'T  want  to  be  too  fine,  ye  know,  Mary  Jane, 
—  somethin'  tasty  and  kind  of  suitable.  It 's  an  old 
bunnit;  but  my!  them  Leghorns '11  last  a  generation  if 
you  favor  'em.    That  was  mother's  weddin'  bunnit." 

"  You  don't  say  so !  Well,  it  has  kept  remarkable  well; 
but  a  good  Leghorn  will  last,  that 's  a  fact,  though  they 
get  real  brittle  after  a  spell :  and  you  '11  have  to  be  awful 
careful  of  this,  Miss  Beulah;  it's  brittle  now,  I  see." 

"Yes,  I  expect  it  is;  but  it'll  carry  me  through  this 
summer,  I  guess.  But  I  want  you  to  make  it  real  tasty, 
Mary  Jane;  for  my  niece,  Mis'  Smith,  she  that  was 
'Liza  Barber,  is  coming  to  stay  awhile  to  our  house 
this  summer,  and  she  lives  in  the  city,  you  know." 

"  'Liza  Barber !  Do  tell !  Why,  I  have  n't  seen  her 
sence  she  was  knee-high  to  a  hop-toad,  as  you  may  say. 
He  ain't  livin',  is  he  ?  " 

"No:  he  died  two  years  ago,  leavin'  her  with  three 
children.  Sarah  is  a  grown  girl;  and  then  there's  Jack, 
he 's  eight,  and  Janey,  she 's  three.  There  was  four  died 
between  Jack  and  Sarah.    I  guess  she's  full  eighteen." 

"Mercy  to  me!  time  flies,  don't  it?  But  about  the 
bunnit :  what  should  you  say  to  this  lavender  ribbin  ?  " 

"Ain't  I  kind  of  dark  for  lavender?  I  had  an  idee 
to  have  brown,  or  mabbe  dark  green." 

383 


MODERN  STORIES 

"  Land !  for  spring  ?  Why,  that  ain't  the  right  thing. 
This  lavender  is  real  han'some;  and  111  set  it  off  with 
a  little  black  lace,  and  put  a  bow  on 't  in  the  front.  It  '11 
be  real  dressy  and  seemly  for  you." 

"Well,  you  can  try  it,  Mary  Jane;  but  I  give  you 
fair  warnin',  if  I  think  it's  too  dressy,  you'll  have  to 
take  it  all  off." 

"I'm  willin',"  laughed  Miss  Mary  Jane  Beers,  a 
good  old  soul,  and  a  contemporary  of  her  customer, 
Miss  Beulah  Larkin,  who  was  an  old  maid  living  in 
Dorset  on  a  small  amount  of  money  carefully  invested, 
and  owning  the  great  red  house  which  her  grandfather 
had  built  for  a  large  family  on  one  corner  of  his  farm. 
Farm  and  family  were  both  gone  now,  save  and  except 
Miss  Beulah  and  her  niece;  but  the  old  lady  and  a  lit- 
tle maid  she  had  taken  to  bring  up  dwelt  in  one  end  of 
the  wide  house,  and  contrived  to  draw  more  than  half 
their  subsistence  from  the  garden  and  orchard  attached 
to  it.  Here  they  spun  out  an  innocent  existence,  whose 
chief  dissipations  were  evening  meetings,  sewing-societies, 
funerals,  and  the  regular  Sunday  services,  to  which  all 
the  village  faithfully  repaired,  and  any  absence  from 
which  was  commented  on,  investigated,  and  reprobated, 
if  without  good  excuse,  in  the  most  unsparing  manner. 
Miss  Beulah  Larkin  was  tall,  gaunt,  hard-featured,  and 
good.  Everybody  respected  her,  some  feared,  and  a 
few  loved  her:  but  she  was  not  that  sort  of  soul  which 
thirsts  to  be  loved ;  her  whole  desire  and  design  was  to 
do  her  duty  and  be  respectable.  Into  this  latter  clause 
came  the  matter  of  a  bonnet,  over  which  she  had  held 
such  anxious  discourse.   If  she  had  any  feminine  van- 

384 


MISS  BEULAH'S  BONNET 

ity,  —  and  she  was  a  woman,  —  it  took  this  virtuous 
aspect  of  a  desire  to  be  "respectit  like  the  lave,"  for 
decency  of  dress  as  well  as  demeanor.  This  spring  she 
had  received  a  letter  from  her  niece,  the  widowed  Mrs. 
Smith,  asking  if  she  could  come  to  visit  her;  and,  send- 
ing back  a  pleased  assent,  Miss  Beulah  and  her  little 
handmaid,  Nanny  Starks,  bestirred  themselves  to  sweep 
and  garnish  the  house,  already  fresh  and  spotless  from 
its  recent  annual  cleaning.  Windows  were  opened,  beds 
put  out  to  sun,  blankets  aired,  spreads  unfolded,  sheets 
taken  from  the  old  chests,  and  long-disused  dimity  cur- 
tains washed,  ironed,  and  tacked  up  against  the  small- 
paned  sashes,  and  tied  back  with  scraps  of  flowered  rib- 
bon, exhumed  from  hidden  shelves,  that  might  well  have 
trimmed  that  Leghorn  bonnet  in  its  first  youth. 

Mrs.  Eliza  Smith  was  a  poor  woman,  but  a  woman 
of  resource.  Her  visit  was  not  purely  of  affection,  or 
of  family  respect.  Her  daughter  Sarah  —  a  pretty, 
slight,  graceful  girl,  with  gold-brown  hair,  dark  straight 
brows  above  a  pair  of  limpid  gray  eyes,  red  lips,  and 
a  clear  pale  skin  —  had  been  intended  by  her  mother 
to  blossom  into  beauty  in  due  season,  and  "marry 
well,"  as  the  phrase  goes;  but  Sarah  and  a  certain  Fred 
Wilson,  telegraph-operator  in  Dartford,  had  set  all  the 
thrifty  mother's  plans  at  defiance,  and  fallen  head  over 
heels  in  love,  regardless  of  Mrs.  Smith  or  anybody  else. 
Sarah's  brows  were  not  black  and  straight,  or  her  chin 
firm  and  cleft  with  a  dimple,  for  nothing:  she  meant 
to  marry  Fred  Wilson  as  soon  as  was  convenient;  and 
Mrs.  Smith,  having  unusual  common  sense,  as  well  as 
previous  experience  of  Sarah's  capacity  of  resistance, 

385 


MODERN  STORIES 

ceased  to  oppose  that  young  lady's  resolute  intention. 
Master  Wilson  had  already  gone  West,  to  a  more  lucra- 
tive situation  than  Dartford  afforded;  and  Sarah  was 
only  waiting  to  get  ready  as  to  her  outfit,  and  amass 
enough  money  for  the  cost  of  traveling,  to  follow  him, 
since  he  was  unable  to  return  for  her,  both  from  lack 
of  money  and  time.  In  this  condition  of  things  it  oc- 
curred to  Mrs.  Smith  that  it  would  save  a  good  deal  of 
money  if  she  could  spend  the  summer  with  Aunt  Beulah, 
and  so  be  spared  the  expense  of  board  and  lodging  for 
her  family.  Accordingly  she  looked  about  for  a  tenant 
for  her  little  house;  and,  finding  one  ready  to  come  in 
sooner  than  she  had  anticipated,  she  answered  Aunt 
Beulah's  friendly  letter  of  invitation  with  an  immediate 
acceptance,  and  followed  her  own  epistle  at  once,  ar- 
riving just  as  the  last  towel  had  been  hung  on  the  various 
wash-stands,  and  while  yet  the  great  batch  of  sweet 
home-made  bread  was  hot  from  the  oven,  and,  alas 
for  Miss  Beulah !  before  that  Leghorn  bonnet  had  come 
home  from  Miss  Beers 's  front  parlor,  in  which  she 
carried  on  her  flourishing  millinery  business. 

Miss  Larkin  was  unfeignedly  glad  to  see  Eliza  again, 
though  her  eyes  grew  a  little  dim,  perceiving  how  time 
had  transformed  the  fresh,  gay  girl  she  remembered 
into  this  sad  and  sallow  woman;  but  she  said  nothing 
of  these  changes,  and,  giving  the  rest  an  equal  wel- 
come, established  them  in  the  clean,  large,  cool  cham- 
bers that  were  such  a  contrast  to  the  hot  rooms,  small 
and  dingy,  of  their  city  home. 

Jack  was  a  veritable  little  pickle,  tall  of  his  age,  and 
light  of  foot  and  hand ;  nature  had  framed  him  in  body 

386 


MISS  BEULAH'S  BONNET 

and  mind  for  mischief:  while  Sarah  was  a  pleasant, 
handy  young  girl,  as  long  as  nothing  opposed  her;  and 
Janey  a  round  and  rosy  poppet,  who  adored  Jack,  and 
rebelled  against  her  mother  and  Sarah  hourly.  Jack 
was  a  born  nuisance:  Miss  Beulah  could  hardly  endure 
him,  he  did  so  controvert  all  the  orders  and  manners 
of  her  neat  house.  He  hunted  the  hens  to  the  brink  of 
distraction,  and  broke  up  their  nests  till  eggs  were  scarce 
to  find,  —  a  state  of  things  never  before  known  in  that 
old  barn,  where  the  hens  had  dwelt  and  done  their  duty, 
till  that  duty  had  Consigned  them  to  the  stew-pan,  for 
years  and  years.  He  made  the  cat's  life  a  burden  to  her 
in  a  hundred  ways;  and  poor  Nanny  Starks  had  never 
any  rest  or  peace  till  her  tormentor  was  safe  in  bed. 

Mrs.  Smith  began  to  fear  her  visit  would  be  prema- 
turely shortened  on  Jack's  account:  and  Sarah,  who 
had  wisely  confided  her  love-affair  to  Aunt  Beulah,  and 
stirred  that  hardened  heart  to  its  core  by  her  pathetic 
tale  of  poverty  and  separation,  began  to  dread  the  fail- 
ure of  her  hopes  also ;  for  her  aunt  had  more  than  hinted 
that  she  would  give  something  toward  that  traveling 
money  which  was  now  the  girl's  great  object  in  life, 
since  by  diligent  sewing  she  had  almost  finished  her 
bridal  outfit.  As  for  Janey,  she  was  already,  in  spite 
of  her  naughtiness,  mistress  of  Aunt  Beulah's  very  soul. 
Round,  fat,  rosy,  bewitching  as  a  child  and  only  a  child 
can  be,  the  poor  spinster's  repressed  affection,  her  de- 
nied maternity,  her  love  of  beauty,  —  a  secret  to  her- 
self, —  and  her  protecting  instinct,  all  blossomed  for 
this  baby,  who  stormed  or  smiled  at  her  according  to 
the  caprice  of  the  hour,  but  was  equally  lovely  in  the 

387 


MODERN  STORIES 

old  lady's  eyes  whether  she  smiled  or  stormed.  If  Janey 
said,  "Turn!"  in  her  imperative  way,  Miss  Beulah 
came,  whether  her  hands  were  in  the  wash-tub  or  the 
bread-tray.  Janey  ran  riot  over  her  most  cherished 
customs;  and,  while  she  did  not  hesitate  to  scold  or 
even  slap  Jack  harshly  for  his  derelictions,  she  had 
an  excuse  always  ready  for  Janey's  worst  sins,  and  a 
kiss  instead  of  a  blow  for  her  wildest  exploits  of  mis- 
chief. Jack  hated  the  old  aunty  as  much  as  he  feared 
her  tongue  and  hand :  and  this  only  made  matters  worse ; 
for  he  felt  a  certain  right  to  torment  her  that  would  not 
have  been  considered  a  right,  had  he  felt  instead  any 
shame  for  abusing  her  kindness.  But  a  soft  answer 
from  her  never  turned  away  his  wrath,  or  this  tale  of 
woe  about  her  bonnet  had  never  been  told. 

There  had  been  long  delay  concerning  that  article. 
The  bleacher  had  been  slow,  and  the  presser  imprac- 
ticable: it  had  been  sent  back  once  to  be  reshaped,  and 
then  the  lavender  ribbon  had  proved  of  scant  measure, 
and  had  to  be  matched.  But  at  last,  one  hot  day  in  May, 
Nanny  brought  the  queer  old  bandbox  home  from  Miss 
Beers's,  and  Aunt  Beulah  held  up  her  head-gear  to  be 
commented  on.  It  was  really  a  very  good-looking  bon- 
net. The  firm  satin  ribbon  was  a  pleasant  tint,  and 
contrasted  well  with  the  pale  color  of  the  Leghorn ;  and 
a  judicious  use  of  black  lace  gave  it  an  air  of  sobriety 
and  elegance  combined,  which  pleased  Miss  Beulah's 
eye,  and  even  moved  Mrs.  Smith  to  express  approbation. 

"Well,  I'm  free  to  own  it  suits  me,"  said  the  old 
lady,  eyeing  the  glass  with  her  head  a  little  on  one  side, 
as  a  bird  eyes  a  worm.    "  It 's  neat,  and  it 's  becomin', 

388 


MISS  BEULAH'S  BONNET 

as  fur  as  a  bunnit  can  be  said  to  be  becomin '  to  an 
woman,  though  I  ain't  really  to  call  old.  Mary  Jane 
Beers  is  older  than  me;  and  she  ain't  but  seventy-three, 
—  jest  as  spry  as  a  lark,  too.  Yes,  I  like  the  bunnit;  but 
it  doos  —  sort  of  —  seem  —  as  though  that  there  bow 
wa'n't  really  in  the  middle  of  it.  What  do  you  think, 
'Lizy?" 

"  I  don't  see  but  what  it 's  straight,  Aunt  Beulah." 

"  'T  ain't,"  said  the  spinster  firmly.  "  Sary,  you  look 
at  it." 

Sarah's  eye  was  truer  than  her  mother's.  "  'T  is  a 
mite  too  far  to  the  left,  Aunt  Beulah;  but  I  guess  I  can 
fix  it." 

"You  let  her  take  it,"  said  Mrs.  Smith.  "She's  a 
real  good  hand  at  millinery :  she  made  her  own  hat,  and 
Janey's  too.  I  should  hate  to  have  her  put  her  hand 
to  that  bunnit  if  she  wa'n't;  for  it's  real  pretty  — 
'specially  for  a  place  like  Dorset  to  get  up." 

"  Lay  it  off  on  the  table,  Aunt  Beulah.  I  'm  going  up- 
stairs to  make  my  bed,  and  I'll  fetch  my  workbasket 
down,  and  fix  that  bow  straight  in  a  jiffy." 

"Well,  I  must  go  up,  too,"  said  Mrs.  Smith,  and  fol- 
lowed Sarah  out  of  the  room;  but  Miss  Beulah,  thougk 
duty  called  her  too,  in  the  imperative  shape  of  a  baicfe 
of  bread  waiting  to  be  moulded  up,  lingered  a  little 
longer,  poising  the  bonnet  on  her  hand,  holding  it  off 
to  get  a  distant  view,  turning  it  from  side  to  side,  and, 
in  short,  behaving  exactly  as  younger  and  prettier  wo- 
men do  over  a  new  hat,  even  when  it  is  a  miracle  of 
art  from  Paris,  instead  of  a  revamped  Leghorn  from 
a  country  shop. 

389 


MODERN  STORIES 

She  laid  it  down  with  a  long  breath  of  content,  for 
taste  and  economy  had  done  their  best  for  her;  and  then 
she,  too,  left  the  room,  never  perceiving  that  Jack  and 
Janey  had  been  all  the  time  deeply  engaged  under 
the  great  old-fashioned  breakfast-table,  silently  ripping 
up  a  new  doll  to  see  what  was  inside  it,  —  silently, 
because  they  had  an  inward  consciousness  that  it  was 
mischief  they  were  about;  and  Jack,  at  least,  did  not 
want  to  be  interrupted  till  he  was  through.  But  he  had 
not  been  too  busy  to  hear  and  understand  that  Aunt 
Beulah  was  pleased;  and,  still  smarting  from  the  switch 
with  which  she  had  whipped  his  shoulders  that  very 
morning  for  putting  the  cat  into  the  cistern,  he  saw  an 
opportunity  for  revenge  before  his  eyes;  he  would  hide 
this  precious  bonnet  so  Aunt  Beulah  could  never  find 
it  again.  How  to  do  this,  and  not  be  found  out,  was  a 
problem  to  be  considered;  but  mischief  is  quick-witted. 
There  stood  in  the  window  a  large  rocking-chair,  well 
stuffed  under  its  chintz  cover,  and  holding  a  plump 
soft  feather  cushion  so  big  it  fairly  overflowed  the  seat. 
Under  this  cushion  he  was  sure  nobody  would  think  of 
looking;  and,  to  save  himself  from  consequences,  he 
resolved  to  make  Janey  a  cat's-paw:  so  he  led  her  up 
to  the  table,  made  her  lift  the  precious  hat  and  deposit 
it  under  the  cushion,  which  he  raised  for  the  purpose; 
then,  carefully  dropping  the  frill,  he  tugged  Janey,  un- 
willing but  scared  and  silent,  out  into  the  yard,  and, 
impressing  on  her  infant  mind  with  wild  threats  of 
bears  and  guns  that  she  must  never  tell  where  the  bon- 
net was,  he  contrived  to  interest  her  in  a  new  play  so 
intensely,  that  the  bonnet  went  utterly  into  oblivion, 

390 


MISS  BEULAH'S  BONNET 

as  far  as  she  was  concerned ;  and  when  they  were  called 
in  to  dinner,  and  she  had  taken  her  daily  nap,  Janey 
had  become  as  innocent  of  mischief  in  her  own  mem- 
ory as  the  dolly  who  lay  all  disemboweled  and  forlorn 
under  the  table. 

When  Sarah  came  down  and  did  not  find  the  bonnet, 
she  concluded  Aunt  Beulah  had  put  it  away  in  her  own 
room,  for  fear  a  sacrilegious  fly  or  heedless  speck  of 
dust  might  do  it  harm:  so  she  took  up  a  bit  of  lace  she 
was  knitting,  and  went  out  into  the  porch,  glad  to  get 
into  a  cool  place,  the  day  was  so  warm. 

And  when  the  bread  was  moulded  up,  Aunt  Beulah 
came  back,  and,  not  seeing  her  bonnet,  supposed  Sarah 
had  taken  it  upstairs  to  change  the  bow.  She  was  not 
an  impatient  woman,  and  the  matter  was  not  pressing: 
so  she  said  nothing  about  the  bonnet  at  dinner,  but 
hurried  over  that  meal  in  order  to  finish  her  baking. 
Mrs.  Smith  had  not  come  down  again,  for  a  morning 
headache  had  so  increased  upon  her,  she  had  lain  down : 
so  that  no  one  disturbed  the  rocking-chair  in  which 
that  bonnet  lay  hid  till  Mrs.  Blake,  the  minister's  wife, 
came  in  to  make  a  call  about  four  o'clock.  She  was  a 
stout  woman,  and  the  walk  had  tired  her.  Aunt  Beulah's 
hospitable  instincts  were  roused  by  that  red,  weary  face. 

"  You  're  dreadful  warm,  ain't  you,  Miss  Blake  ? " 
said  she.  "  It 's  an  amazin'  warm  day  for  this  time  of 
year,  and  it 's  consider'ble  more  'n  a  hen-hop  from  your 
house  up  here.  Lay  your  bunnit  off,  do,  and  set  down 
in  the  rocker.  I  '11  tell  Nanny  to  fetch  some  shrub  and 
water.  Our  ras'berry  shrub  is  good,  if  I  do  say  it;  and 
it 's  kep'  over  as  good  as  new." 

391 


MODERN  STORIES 

So  Mrs.  Blake  removed  her  bonnet,  and  sank  down 
on  that  inviting  cushion  with  all  her  weight,  glad  enough 
to  rest,  and  ignorant  of  the  momentous  consequences. 
Her  call  was  somewhat  protracted.  Had  there  been 
any  pins  in  that  flattened  Leghorn  beneath  her,  she 
might  have  shortened  her  stay.  But  Miss  Mary  Jane 
Beers  was  conscientiously  opposed  to  pins,  and  every 
lavender  bow  was  sewed  on  with  silk  to  match,  and 
scrupulous  care.  After  the  whole  village  news  had  been 
discussed,  the  state  of  religion  lamented,  and  the  short- 
comings of  certain  sisters  who  failed  in  attending  prayer- 
meetings  talked  over,  —  with  the  charitable  admission, 
to  be  sure,  that  one  had  a  young  baby,  and  another  a 
sprained  ankle,  —  Mrs.  Blake  rose  to  go,  tied  on  her 
bonnet,  and  said  good-by  all  round,  quite  as  ignorant 
as  her  hosts  of  the  remediless  ruin  she  had  done. 

It  was  tea-time  now;  and,  as  they  sat  about  the  table, 
Sarah  said,  "  I  guess  I  '11  fix  your  bonnet  after  tea,  aunty: 
't  won't  take  but  a  minute,  and  I  'd  rather  do  it  while 
I  recollect  just  where  that  bow  goes." 

"Why,  I  thought  you  had  fixed  it!"  returned  Miss 
Beulah. 

"Well,  I  came  right  back,  too;  but  it  wa'n't  here.  I 
thought  you  'd  took  it  into  your  bedroom." 

"I  hain't  touched  it  sence  it  lay  right  here  on  the 
table." 

"I'll  run  up  and  ask  ma:  maybe  she  laid  it  by." 

But  Mrs.  Smith  had  not  been  downstairs  since  she 
left  Aunt  Beulah  with  the  bonnet  in  her  hands.  And 
now  the  old  lady  turned  on  Jack.  "  Have  you  ben  and 
carried  off  my  bunnit,  you  little  besom  ?  " 

392 


MISS  BEULAH'S  BONNET 

"I  hain't  touched  your  old  bonnet!"  retorted  Jack, 
with  grand  scorn. 

"  I  don't  believe  he  has,"  said  Sarah ; "  for,  when  I  come 
downstairs  and  found  it  wa'n't  here,  I  went  out  and  set 
on  the  bench  to  the  front-door,  and  I  heard  him  and 
Janey  away  off  the  other  side  of  the  yard,  play  in' ;  and 
you  know  they  wa'n't  in  here  when  the  bonnet  come." 

"  Well,  of  course  Janey  has  n't  seen  it,  if  Jack  has  n't ; 
and,  if  she  had,  the  blessed  child  would  n't  have  touched 
old  aunty's  bonnet  for  a  dollar  —  would  she,  precious 
lamb  ? '"  And  Aunt  Beulah  stroked  the  bright  curls  of 
her  darling,  who  looked  up  into  her  face,  and  laughed; 
while  Jack  grinned  broadly  between  his  bites  of  bread 
and  butter,  master  of  the  situation,  and  full  of  sweet 
revenge.  "  And  Nanny  hain't  seen  it,  I  know,"  went  on 
Aunt  Beulah ;  "  for  she  was  along  of  me  the  whole  endur- 
in'  time,  She  set  right  to  a-parin'  them  Roxbury  rus- 
sets the  minnit  she  fetched  home  the  bunnit ;  and  I  kep' 
her  on  the  tight  jump  ever  sence,  because  it 's  bakin'- 
day,  and  there  was  a  sight  to  do.  But  I  '11  ask  her :  't  ain't 
lost  breath  to  ask,  my  mother  used  to  say,  and  mabbe 
it's  a  gain." 

The  old  lady  strode  out  into  the  kitchen  with  knit 
brows,  but  came  back  without  any  increased  knowledge. 
"  She  hain't  ben  in  here  once  sence  she  set  down  the 
bandbox;  and,  come  to  think  on  't,  I  know  she  hain't, 
for  I  cleared  the  table  myself  to-day,  and,  besides,  the 
bunnit  wa'n't  here  at  dinner-time.  Now  let 's  hunt  for 
it.  Things  don't  gener'lly  vanish  away  without  hands; 
but,  if  we  can't  find  no  hands,  why,  it 's  as  good  as  the 
next  thing  to  look  for  the  bunnit." 

393 


MODERN  STORIES 

So  they  went  to  work  and  searched  the  house,  as  they 
thought,  most  thoroughly.  No  nook  or  corner  but  was 
investigated,  if  it  was  large  enough  to  hold  that  bon- 
net; but  nobody  once  thought  of  looking  under  the 
chair-cushion.  If  it  had  been  as  plump  and  fluffy  as 
when  Jack  and  Janey  put  the  lost  structure  under  it, 
there  might  have  been  a  suspicion  of  its  hiding-place; 
but  Mrs.  Blake's  two  hundred  pounds  of  solid  flesh 
had  reduced  bonnet  and  cushion  alike  to  unusual  flat- 
ness. Or,  if  it  had  been  any  other  day  but  Saturday, 
the  chair  might  have  been  dusted  and  shaken  up,  and 
revealed  its  mystery;  but  early  that  very  morning  the 
house  below  stairs  had  been  swept,  and  the  furniture 
dusted,  the  cushions  shaken  out,  the  brasses  polished, 
and  all  the  weekly  order  and  purity  restored  everywhere. 
The  bonnet  was  evidently  lost;  and  Jack,  who  had 
followed  the  domestic  detectives  upstairs  and  down, 
retired  behind  the  wood-pile,  and  executed  a  joyful 
dance  to  relieve  his  suppressed  feelings,  snapping  his 
fingers,  and  slapping  his  knees,  and  shouting  scraps  of 
all  the  expletives  he  knew,  in  the  joy  of  his  heart.  How 
tragic  would  this  mirth  have  seemed  to  a  spectator 
aware  of  its  cause,  contrasted  with  the  portentous  gloom 
on  Aunt  Beulah's  forehead,  and  the  abstracted  glare  of 
her  eye!  For  several  days  this  deluded  spinster  mused 
and  mazed  over  her  bonnet,  going  to  church  on  Sunday 
in  her  shabby  old  velvet  hat,  which  had  scarcely  been 
respectable  before,  but  now,  in  the  glare  of  a  hot  May 
sun,  not  only  showed  all  its  rubbed  and  worn  places, 
its  shiny  streaks  and  traces  of  eaves-drops  in  the  de- 
pressed and  tangled  nap,  but  also  made  her  head  so 

394 


MISS  BEULAH'S  BONNET 

hot  that  she  fairly  went  to  bed  at  last  with  sick-head- 
ache, unable  to  attend  evening  service,  —  a  most  un- 
heard-of thing  for  her. 

Before  the  week  was  half  done,  she  had  settled  into 
a  profound  belief  that  some  tramp  had  passed  while 
they  were  all  out  of  the  room,  and,  charmed  by  that 
lavender  satin  ribbon  and  black  lace,  stolen  the  bonnet, 
and  carried  it  off  to  sell;  and  many  a  time  did  Miss 
Beulah  sit  rocking  to  and  fro  on  top  of  her  precious 
Leghorn,  wondering  and  bemoaning  at  its  loss.  But 
murder  will  out  —  sometimes,  and  would  certainly  have 
come  out  in  the  weekly  cleaning  the  next  Saturday, 
if,  on  the  Friday  morning,  Miss  Beulah  had  not  set 
down  a  pitcher  of  milk,  just  brought  in  by  a  neighbor, 
on  the  end  of  the  table  nearest  to  that  rocking-chair, 
—  set  it  down  only  for  a  moment,  to  get  the  neighbor 
a  recipe  for  sugar  gingerbread  peculiar  to  the  Larkin 
family.  Janey  happened  to  be  thirsty,  and  reached 
after  the  pitcher,  but  was  just  tall  enough  to  grasp 
the  handle  so  low  down,  that  when  she  pulled  at  it, 
steadying  herself  against  the  chair,  it  tipped  sideways, 
and  poured  a  copious  stream  of  fresh  milk  on  the 
cushion.  The  chintz  was  old,  and  had  lost  its  glaze, 
and  the  feathers  were  light:  so  the  rich  fluid  soaked  in 
at  once;  and  before  the  two  women,  recalled  from  the 
cupboard  by  Janey's  scream,  could  reach  the  pitcher, 
there  was  only  a  very  soppy  and  wet  cushion  in  the 
chair. 

"For  mercy's  sakes!"  said  the  neighbor.  But  Miss 
Beulah,  with  great  presence  of  mind,  snatched  up  the 
dripping  mass  and  flung  it  out  of  the  open  window, 

395 


MODERN  STORIES 

lest  her  carpet  should  suffer.  She  reverted  to  the  chair 
in  a  second,  and  stood  transfixed. 

"What  under  the  everlastin'  canopy!"  broke  from 
her  dismayed  lips;  for  there,  flattened  out  almost  be- 
yond recognition,  and  broken  wherever  it  was  bent,  its 
lavender  ribbons  soaked  with  milk,  the  cheap  lace  limp 
and  draggled,  lay  the  remains  of  the  Leghorn  bonnet. 

"Of  all  things!"  exclaimed  the  neighbor;  but  there 
was  an  echo  of  irrepressible  amusement  in  her  tones. 
Aunt  Beulah  glared  at  her,  and  lifted  the  damp  bonnet 
as  tenderly  as  if  it  had  been  Janey's  curls,  regarding 
it  with  an  expression  pen  or  pencil  fails  to  depict,  — 
a  mixture  of  grief,  pity,  indignation,  and  amazement, 
that,  together  with  the  curious  look  of  the  bonnet,  was 
too  much  for  the  neighbor;  and,  to  use  her  own  after- 
expression  in  describing  the  scene,  she  "snickered 
right  out." 

"  Laugh,  do,"  said  Aunt  Beulah  witheringly,  —  "  do 
laugh !  I  guess,  if  your  best  bunnit  had  ben  set  on  and 
drownded,  you'd  laugh  the  other  side  o'  your  mouth, 
Miss  Jackson.    This  is  too  much." 

"Well,  I  be  sorry,"  said  the  placable  female;  "but 
it  does  look  so  dreadful  ridiculous  like,  I  could  n't  no- 
ways help  myself.  But  how  on  earth  did  it  git  there, 
I  'd  admire  to  know  ?  " 

"I  dono  myself  as  I  know;  but  I  hain't  a  doubt  in 
my  own  mind  it  was  that  besom  of  a  Jack.  He  is  the 
fullest  of  'riginal  sin  and  actual  transgression  of  any 
boy  I  ever  see.  He  did  say,  now  I  call  to  mind,  that 
he  had  n't  never  touched  it;  but  I  mistrust  he  did.  He 
beats  all  for  mischief  that  ever  I  see.    I'm  free  to  say 

396 


MISS  BEULAH'S  BONNET 

I  never  did  like  boys.  I  suppose  divine  Providence  or- 
dained 'em  to  some  good  end;  but  it  takes  a  sight  o' 
grace  to  believe  it:  and,  of  all  the  boys  that  ever  was 
sent  into  this  world  for  any  purpose,  I  do  believe  he  is 
the  hatefulest.  I'd  jest  got  my  bunnit  to  my  mind, 
calc'latin'  to  wear  it  all  summer;  and  I  am  a  mite  per- 
nickity,  I  '11  allow  that,  about  my  bunnits.  Well,  't  ain't 
no  use  to  cry  over  spilt  milk." 

"  I  '11  fetch  ye  some  more  to-morrow,"  said  the  literal 
neighbor. 

"You're  real  good,  Miss  Jackson;  but  I'm  more 
exercised  a  lot  about  my  bunnit  than  I  be  about  the 
milk  —  Sary,  look  a-here!" 

Sarah,  just  coming  in  at  the  door,  did  look,  and,  like 
Mrs.  Jackson,  felt  a  strong  desire  to  smile,  but  with 
native  tact  controlled  it. 

"  Why,  where  on  earth  did  you  find  it,  Aunt  Beulah  ?  " 

"Right  under  the  rocker  cushion.  It  must  have  ben 
there  when  Miss  Blake  come  in  that  day  and  set  down 
there;  for  I  remember  thinkin'  Nanny  must  ha'  shook 
that  cushion  up  more  'n  usual,  it  looked  so  comfortable 
and  high." 

"I  don't  wonder  it's  flat,  if  Miss  Blake  set  on't," 
giggled  Mrs.  Jackson,  at  which  Aunt  Beulah's  face 
darkened  so  perceptibly  that  the  good  neighbor  took 
her  leave.  Comedy  to  her  was  tragedy  to  the  unhappy 
owner  of  the  bonnet;  and  she  had  the  sense  to  know 
she  was  alien  to  the  spirit  of  the  hour,  and  go  home. 

"  But  how  did  it  get  there  ? "  asked  Sarah. 

"You  tell,"  replied  Miss  Beulah,  "for  I  can't.  I  do 
mistrust  Jack." 

397 


MODERN  STORIES 

"Jack  said  he  hadn't  touched  it,  though;  and  it 
could  n't  get  there  without  hands." 

"Well,  mabbe  Jack  don't  always  say  the  thing  that 
is.  'Foolishness  is  bound  up  in  the  heart  of  a  child,' 
Scriptur'  says ;  and  I  guess  he  hain't  had  enough  of  the 
rod  o'  correction  to  drive  it  out  of  him  yet.  He's  the 
behavin'est  youngster  I  ever  see;  and  I'm  quite  along 
in  years,  if  I  be  spry." 

"I'll  call  him,  aunty,  and  see  what  he'll  say  this 
time." 

"  'T  won't  be  no  use :  if  he 's  lied  once,  he  '11  lie  twice. 

Scriptur'  says  the  Devil  was  a  liar  from  the  beginnin' ; 

and  I  expect  that  means  that  lyin'  is  ingrain.    I  never 

knowed  it  to  be  fairly  knocked  out  of  anybody  yet,  even 

when  amazin'  grace  wrastled  with  it.    There's  Deacon 

Shubael  Morse:  why,  he's  as  good  as  gold;  but  them 

Morses  is  a  proverb,  you  may  say,  and  always  hes  ben, 

time  out  o'  mind,  —  born  liars,  so  to  speak.   I  've  heerd 

Grandsir  Larkin  say,  that,  as  fur  back  as  he  could  call 

to  mind,  folks  would  say,  — 

'Steal  a  horse, 
An'  b'lieve  a  Morse.' 

But  the  deacon  he's  a  hero  at  prayer,  and  gives  heaps 
to  the  s'cieties;  but  he  ain't  reely  to  be  relied  on.  He's 
sharper 'n  a  needle  to  bargain  with;  and  if  his  word 
ain't  writ  down  in  black  and  white,  why,  't  ain't  no- 
where. He  don't  read  no  novils,  nor  play  no  cards: 
he'd  jest  as  lives  swear  outright  as  do  one  or  t'other. 
But  I  do  say  for 't,  I  'd  ruther  myself  see  him  real  hon- 
est than  any  o'  them  things.  I  don't  believe  in  no  sort 
o'  professin'  that  falls  short  in  practicing  but  I  can't 

398 


MISS   BEULAH'S  BONNET 

somehow  feel  so  real  spry  to  blame  the  deacon  as  though 
he  wa'n't  a  Morse.    But  you  call  Jack,  anyhow." 

So  Jack  was  called. 

He  came  in,  with  Janey,  flushed,  lovely,  and  dirty, 
trotting  behind  him,  and  was  confronted  with  the 
bonnet. 

"  Jack,  did  you  hide  it  ? " 

"  I  hain't  touched  your  old  bonnet.   I  said  so  before." 

An  idea  struck  Sarah. 

"Janey,"  she  said  sharply,  "did  you  put  aunty's 
bonnet  under  the  cushion  ?  " 

"Janey  don't  'member,"  said  the  child,  smiling  as 
innocently  as  the  conventional  cherub  of  art. 

"Well,  you  must  remember!"  said  Sarah,  picking 
her  up  from  the  floor,  and  setting  her  down  with  em- 
phasis on  the  table. 

Janey  began  to  cry. 

"Naughty  Salah  hurt  Janey!"  and  the  piteous  tears 
coursed  down  her  rosy,  dust-smeared  cheeks  from  those 
big  blue  eyes  that  looked  like  dew-drowned  forget-me- 
nots. 

Aunt  Beulah  could  not  stand  this.  "You  let  that 
baby  alone,  Sarah!  She  don't  know  enough  to  be 
naughty,  bless  her  dear  little  soul !  —  There,  there,  don't 
you  cry  a  mite  more,  Janey.  Aunty  '11  give  you  ginger 
cooky  this  very  minute!" 

And  Janey  was  comforted  with  kisses  and  smiles  and 
gingerbread,  her  face  washed,  and  her  curls  softly  turned 
on  tender  fingers;  while  Jack,  longing  for  gingerbread 
with  the  preternatural  appetite  of  a  growing  boy,  was 
sent  off  in  disgrace. 

399 


MODERN  STORIES 

"  I  make  no  doubt  you  done  it,  you  little  rascal,  and 
lied  it  out  too.  But  I  don't  b'lieve  you  no  more  for 
your  lyin' :  so  don't  look  for  no  extries  from  me.  Fellers 
like  you  don't  get  gingerbread  nor  turnovers,  now  I 
tell  you!" 

How  Jack  hated  her !  How  glad  he  was  he  had  spoiled 
her  bonnet!  Shall  I  draw  a  moral  here  to  adorn  my 
tale  ?  No,  dear  reader :  this  is  not  a  treatise  on  educa- 
tion. Miss  Beulah  was  a  good  woman ;  and  if  she  made 
mistakes,  like  the  rest  of  us,  she  took  the  consequences 
as  the  rest  of  us  do ;  and  the  consequences  of  this  spoiled 
bonnet  were  not  yet  ended. 

She  felt  as  if  she  must  have  a  new  one  for  Sunday. 
She  really  did  not  know  how  to  afford  it;  for  she  had 
promised  to  help  Sarah,  and  in  her  eyes  a  promise  was 
as  sacred  as  an  oath.  And  as  for  giving  up  her  sub- 
scriptions to  home  missions,  that  would  be  a  willful  sin. 
But,  without  a  bonnet,  she  could  not  go  to  meeting;  and 
that  was  a  sin,  too.  So  she  put  on  her  sun-bonnet;  and 
taking  the  wreck  of  the  Leghorn,  carefully  concealed 
in  a  paper,  she  set  out  after  tea  that  same  evening  for 
a  conference  with  Miss  Beers,  stopping  at  the  post- 
office  as  she  went  along.  She  found  one  letter  await- 
ing her,  and  knew  by  the  superscription  that  it  was 
from  a  second  cousin  of  hers  in  Dartford,  who  had 
charge  of  such  money  of  hers  as  was  not  in  the  savings 
bank  or  Dartford  and  Old  bay  Railroad  stock,  —  a 
road  paying  steady  dividends.  But,  besides  the  three 
or  four  thousands  in  these  safe  investments  that  Miss 
Beulah  owned,  she  had  two  shares  in  a  manufacturing 
company,  and  one  in  Dartford  Bridge  stock,  from  which 

400 


MISS  BEULAH'S  BONNET 

her  cousin  duly  remitted  the  annual  dividends;  so, 
knowing  what  was  in  the  letter,  for  the  tool  company's 
payment  was  just  due,  she  did  not  open  it  till  she  sat 
down  in  Miss  Beers 's  shop,  and  first  opened  the  Leghorn 
to  view. 

"Of  all  things!"  said  Miss  Beers,  lifting  up  hands 
and  eyes  during  Miss  Beulah's  explanations.  "And 
you  can't  do  nothing  with  it  —  never.  Why,  it 's  flat- 
ter 'n  a  pancake.  Well,  you  could  n't  expect  nothing 
else,  with  Miss  Blake  on  top't:  she'd  squash  a  baby 
out  as  thin  as  a  tin  plate  if  she  happened  to  set  on't, 
which  I  do  hope  she  won't.  See !  the  Leghorn 's  all  broke 
up.  I  told  you  't  was  dreadful  brittle.  And  the  ribbin 
is  spoiled  entire.  You  can't  never  clean  lavender,  nor 
yet  satin,  it  frays  so.  And  the  lace  is  all  gum:  anyway, 
that's  gone.  Might  as  well  chuck  the  hull  into  the 
fire." 

"  So  do,  Mary  Jane,  so  do.  I  never  want  to  set  eyes 
on't  again.  I  have  n't  no  patience  with  that  boy  now, 
and  the  bunnit  riles  me  to  look  at.  I  do  want  to  do  right 
by  the  boy,  but  it  goes  against  the  grain  dreadful.  I 
mistrust  I  shall  have  to  watch  and  pray  real  hard  before 
I  can  anyway  have  patience  with  him.  I  tell  you  he's 
a  cross  to  'Liza  as  well  as  to  me.  But  don't  let 's  talk 
about  him.  What  have  you  got  that  '11  do  for  a  bunnit 
for  me  ? " 

Then  the  merits  of  the  various  bonnets  in  Miss  Beers's 
small  stock  were  canvassed.  A  nice  black  chip  suited 
Aunt  Beulah  well;  and  a  gray  corded  ribbon,  with  a 
cluster  of  dark  pansies,  seemed  just  the  thing  for  trim- 
ming. In  fact,  she  liked  it,  and  with  good  reason,  better 

401 


MODERN   STORIES 

than  the  Leghorn;  but  it  was  expensive.  All  the  ma- 
terials, though  simple,  were  good  and  rich.  Try  as  she 
would,  Miss  Beers  could  not  get  it  up  for  less  than  six 
dollars,  and  that  only  allowed  twenty-five  cents  for  her 
own  work.  The  alternative  was  a  heavy  coarse  straw, 
which  she  proposed  to  deck  with  a  yellow-edged  black 
ribbon,  and  put  some  gold-eyed  black  daisies  inside. 
But  Miss  Beulah  did  want  the  chip. 

"  Let 's  see,"  said  she.  "  Mabbe  this  year's  dividend 
is  seven  per  cent:  'tis  once  in  a  while.  I'll  see  what 
Cousin  Joseph  says.  If  't  ain't  more  than  usual,  I  must 
take  the  straw." 

But  Cousin  Joseph  had  to  tell  her,  that  owing  to  dam- 
age by  flood  and  fire,  as  well  as  a  general  disturbance 
of  business  all  over  the  country,  the  C.  A.  Company 
paid  no  dividend  this  year. 

"Then  I  shan't  have  no  bunnit,"  said  Miss  Larkin 
firmly. 

"Why,  you've  got  to  have  some  kind  of  a  bunnit," 
said  the  amazed  Miss  Beers. 

"I  hain't  got  to  if  I  can't." 

"  But  why  can't  ye,  Beulah  ?  All  your  money  and 
all  your  dividends  ain't  in  that  comp'ny." 

"Well,  there's  other  uses  for  money  this  year  be- 
sides bunnits." 

"You  can't  go  to  meetin'." 

"I  can  stay  at  home." 

"Why,  Beulah  Larkin,  I'll  trust  you,  and  wel- 
come." 

"But  I  won't  be  trusted.  I  never  was,  and  I  never 
will  be.    What  if  I  should  up  and  die  ?  * 

402 


MISS  BEULAH'S  BONNET 

"I'd  sue  the  estate,"  practically  remarked  Miss 
Beers. 

"No:  'out  of  debt,  out  of  danger,'  mother  always 
said,  and  I  believe  in't.  I  shall  hate  to  stay  to  home 
Sundays,  but  I  can  go  to  prayer-meetin'  in  my  slat 
bunnit  well  enough." 

"Why,  the  church '11  deal  with  ye,  Beulah,  if  ye 
neglect  stated  means  of  grace." 

"Let  'em  deal,"  was  the  undaunted  answer.  Miss 
Beulah  had  faced  the  situation,  arranged  it  logically, 
and  accepted  it.  She  had  promised  Sarah  fifteen  dol- 
lars in  June.  She  had  lost  a  dividend  of  twelve  dollars 
on  which  she  had  reckoned  with  certainty;  five  dollars 
was  due  to  home  missions;  and,  with  her  increased 
family,  there  would  be  no  margin  for  daily  expenses. 
There  were  twenty  dollars  in  the  savings  bank  over  and 
above  the  five  hundred  she  had  laid  up  for  a  rainy  day, 
and  left  in  her  will,  made  and  signed  but  last  week,  to 
little  Janey.  On  this  she  would  not  trench,  come  what 
might,  except  in  case  of  absolute  distress;  and  the 
twenty  dollars  were  sacred  to  Sarah  and  home  mis- 
sions. But  this  was  her  private  affair:  she  would  not 
make  the  poverty  of  her  niece  known  abroad,  or  the 
nature  of  her  will.  If  the  church  chose  to  deal  with 
her,  it  might;  but  her  lips  should  never  open  to  explain, 
—  a  commonplace  martyrdom  enough,  and  less  than 
saintly  because  so  much  of  human  pride  and  self-will 
mingled  in  its  suffering ;  yet  honesty  and  uprightness  are 
so  scarce  in  these  days  as  to  make  even  such  a  sturdy 
witness  for  them  respectable,  and  many  a  woman  who 
counts  herself  a  model  of  sanctity  might  shrink  from 

403 


MODERN  STORIES 

a  like  daily  ordeal.  But  Aunt  Beulah  set  her  face  as  a 
flint,  and  pursued  her  way  in  silence.  June  came  and 
went;  and  with  it  went  Sarah  to  her  expectant  bride- 
groom in  Chicago,  from  whence  a  paper  with  due  notice 
of  her  marriage  presently  returned.  Aunt  Beulah  strove 
hard  to  make  both  ends  meet  in  her  housekeeping,  and, 
being  a  close  manager,  succeeded.  There  was  no  mar- 
gin, not  even  twenty-five  spare  cents  to  take  Janey  to 
the  circus;  though  she  cut  Aunt  Beulah's  heart  with 
entreaties  to  be  taken  to  see  "lions  an'  el'phants,"  and 
said,  "P'ease  take  Janey,"  in  a  way  to  melt  a  stone. 
For  to  get  food  enough  to  satisfy  Jack  was  in  itself  a 
problem.  Often  and  often  the  vexed  spinster  declared 
to  Nanny,  her  sympathizing  handmaid,  — 

"  'T  ain't  no  use  a-tryin'  to  fill  him.  He 's  holler  down 
to  his  boots,  I  know.  He  eat  six  b'iled  eggs  for  break- 
fast, and  heaps  of  johnny-cake,  besides  a  pint  o'  milk, 
and  was  as  sharp-set  for  dinner  as  though  he'd  ben 
a-mowin'  all  the  forenoon.  'Lizy  says  he's  growin': 
if  he  grows  anyways  accordin'  to  what  he  eats,  he'll 
be  as  big  as  Goliath  of  Gath,  as  sure  as  you  're  born. 
I  don't  begrudge  the  boy  reasonable  vittles,  but  I 
can't  buy  butcher's-meat  enough  to  satisfy  him  noway. 
And  as  to  garden  sass,  he  won't  eat  none.  That  would 
be  real  fillin'  if  he  would.  Thanks  be  to  praise!  he 
likes  Indian.  Pudding  and  johnny-cake  do  help  a 
sight." 

But  while  Aunt  Beulah  toiled  and  moiled,  and  filled 
her  wide  measure  of  charity  toward  these  widowed  and 
fatherless  with  generous  hand,  the  church,  mightily 
scandalized  at  her  absence  from  its  services,  was  pre- 

404 


MISS  BEULAH'S  BONNET 

paring  to  throw  a  shell  into  her  premises.  It  was  all 
very  well  to  say  to  Miss  Beers  that  she  was  not  afraid 
of  such  a  visitation;  but  a  trouble  at  hand  is  of  quite 
another  aspect  than  a  trouble  afar  off.  Her  heart  quailed 
and  fluttered,  when,  one  July  afternoon,  Nanny  ushered 
into  the  dark,  cool  parlor  Deacon  Morse  and  Deacon 
Flint,  come  to  ask  her  why  she  had  not  attended  church 
since  the  middle  of  last  May,  when  she  was  in  usual 
health  and  exercise  of  her  faculties.  Miss  Beulah,  how- 
ever, was  equal  to  the  occasion.  She  faced  the  deacons 
sternly,  but  calmly. 

"It  is  so,"  she  said,  when  they  had  finished  their 
accusation.  "I  hain't  ben  to  meetin'  for  good  cause. 
You  can't  say  I've  did  anything  that's  give  occasion 
to  the  enemy  more'n  this.  I've  attended  reg'lar  to 
prayer-meetin's  and  sewin'-circle.  I've  give  as  usual 
to  home  missions.  You  can't  say  I've  made  any  scan- 
dal, or  done  nothin'  out  o'  rule,  save  an'  except  stayin' 
at  home  Sabbath  days;  and  my  family  has  attended 
punctooally." 

But  this  did  not  satisfy  the  deacons:  they  pressed 
for  a  reason. 

"  If  you  would  free  your  mind,  Sister  Larkin,  it  would 
be  for  the  good  of  the  church,"  said  Deacon  Morse. 

"Mabbe  't  would  n't  be  altogether  to  your  likin', 
deacon,  if  I  did  free  my  mind.  Seems  as  though  stay- 
in'  at  home  from  meetin'  wa'n't  no  worse  'n  sandin' 
sugar  an'  waterin'  rum;  and  I  never  heerd  you  was 
dealt  with  for  them  things." 

Deacon  Morse  was  dumb,  but  Deacon  Flint  took  up 
the  discourse. 

405 


MODERN  STORIES 

"Well,  Sister  Larkin,  we  did  n't  know  but  what  you 
was  troubled  in  your  mind." 

"I  ain't!"  snapped  Miss  Beulah. 

"  Or  perhaps  was  gettin'  a  mite  doubtful  about  doc- 
trines, or  suthin'." 

"  No,  I  ain't.  I  go  by  the  'Sembly's  Catechism,  and 
believe  in  every  word  on't,  questions  and  all." 

"  Well,  you  seem  to  be  a  leetle  contumacious,  Sister 
Larkin,  so  to  speak:  if  you  had  a  good  reason,  why,  of 
course,  you  'd  be  willin'  to  tell  it." 

This  little  syllogism  caught  Miss  Beulah. 

"Well,  if  you  must  know,  I  hain't  got  no  bunnit." 

The  deacons  stared  mutually;  and  Deacon  Morse, 
forgetful  of  his  defeat,  and  curious,  as  men  naturally 
are,  asked  abruptly,  "  Why  not  ? " 

"  Cause  Mis'  Blake  sot  on  it." 

The  two  men  looked  at  each  other  in  blank  amaze- 
ment, and  shook  their  heads.  Here  was  a  pitfall.  Was 
it  proper,  dignified,  possible,  to  investigate  this  truly 
feminine  tangle  ?  They  were  dying  to  enter  into  par- 
ticulars, but  ashamed  to  do  so;  nothing  was  left  but 
retreat.  Miss  Beulah  perceived  the  emergency,  and 
chuckled  grimly.  This  was  the  last  straw.  The  deacons 
rose  as  one  man,  and  said,  "  Good-day,"  with  an  accent 
of  reprobation,  going  their  ways  in  deep  doubt  as  to 
what  they  should  report  to  the  church,  which  certainly 
would  not  receive  with  proper  gravity  the  announce- 
ment that  Miss  Beulah  Larkin  could  not  come  to  church 
because  the  minister's  wife  had  sat  on  her  Sunday  bon- 
net. The  strife  of  tongues,  however,  did  not  spare  Aunt 
Beulah,  if  the.  deacons  did;  and  for  a  long  time  Miss 

406 


MISS  BEULAH'S  BONNET 

Beers,  who  had  the  key  to  the  situation,  did  not  hear 
any  of  the  gossip,  partly  because  she  had  been  ill  of 
low  fever,  and  then  gone  to  her  sister's  in  Dartford 
for  change  of  air,  and  partly,  that,  during  July  and 
August,  the  sewing-circle  was  temporarily  suspended. 
But  it  renewed  its  sessions  in  September;  and  Miss 
Beers  was  an  active  member,  sure  to  be  at  the  first 
meeting.  It  was  then  and  there  she  heard  the  scorn  and 
jeers  and  unfounded  stories  come  on  like  a  tidal  wave 
to  overwhelm  her  friend's  character.  She  listened  a  few 
minutes  in  silence,  growing  more  and  more  indignant. 
Then,  for  she  was  a  little  woman  as  far  as  stature  went, 
she  mounted  into  a  chair,  and  demanded  the  floor  in 
her  own  fashion. 

"Look  a-here!"  said  she,  her  shrill  voice  soaring 
above  the  busy  clapper  of  tongues  below.  "  It 's  a  burnin' 
shame  to  say  a  hard  word  about  Beulah  Larkin.  She 's 
as  good  a  woman  as  breathes  the  breath  of  life,  and  I 
know  the  hull  why  and  wherefore  she  hain't  ben  to 
meetin'.  She  hain't  had  no  bunnit.  I  made  her  as  tasty 
a  bunnit  as  ever  you  see  last  spring;  and  that  jackanapes 
of  a  boy  he  chucked  it  under  the  rocker  cushion  jest 
to  plague  her,  and  Mis'  Blake  she  come  in  and  sot  right 
down  on  it,  not  knowin',  of  course,  that  'twas  there; 
and,  as  if  that  wa'n't  enough  to  spile  it "  (an  involun- 
tary titter  seemed  to  express  the  sense  of  the  audience 
that  it  was),  "that  other  sprig,  she  took  and  upsot  a 
pitcher  of  milk  onto  the  cushion,  and  you  'd  better  be- 
lieve that  bunnit  was  a  sight!" 

"  Why  did  n't  she  get  another  ?  "  severely  asked  Dea- 
con Morse's  wife. 

407 


MODERN  STORIES 

"  Why  ?  Why,  becos  she 's  a'most  a  saint.  Her  divi- 
dends some  on  'em  did  n't  come  in,  and  she  'd  promised 
that  biggest  girl  fifteen  dollars  to  help  her  get  out  to  her 
feller  at  Chicago,  for  Sary  told  me  on't  herself;  and  then 
she  gives  five  dollars  to  hum  missions  every  year,  and 
she  done  it  this  year  jest  the  same ;  and  she  's  took  that 
widder  and  them  orphans  home  all  summer,  and  nigh 
about  worked  her  head  off  for  'em,  and  never  charged 
a  cent  o'  board;  and  therefor  and  thereby  she  hain't 
had  no  money  to  buy  no  bunnit,  and  goes  to  prayer- 
meetin'  in  her  calico  slat." 

A  rustle  of  wonder  and  respect  went  through  the 
room  as  the  women  moved  uneasily  in  their  chairs, 
exchanged  glances,  and  said,  "My!"  which  inspired 
Miss  Beers  to  go  on. 

"  And  here  everybody 's  ben  a-talkin'  bad  about  her, 
while  she 's  ben  a  real  home-made  kind  of  a  saint.  I 
know  she  don't  look  it;  but  she  doos  it,  and  that's  a 
sight  better.  I  don't  b'lieve  there 's  one  woman  in  forty 
could  ha'  had  the  grit  and  the  perseverance  to  do  what 
she  done,  and  hold  her  tongue  about  it,  too.  I  know  I 
could  n't  for  one." 

"  She  should  n't  ha'  let  her  good  be  evil  spoken  of," 
said  Mrs.  Morse,  with  an  air  of  authority. 

"I  dono  as  anybody  had  oughter  have  spoken  evil 
of  her  good,"  was  Miss  Beers 's  dry  answer;  and  Mrs. 
Morse  said  no  more. 

But  such  a  warm  and  generous  vindication  touched 
many  a  feminine  heart,  which  could  appreciate  Miss 
Beulah's  self-sacrifice  better  than  the  deacons  could. 
There   was   an   immediate   clustering   and   chattering 

408 


MISS  BEULAH'S  BONNET 

among  the  good  women,  who,  if  they  did  love  a  bit  of 
gossip,  were  none  the  less  kindly  and  well-meaning; 
and  presently  a  spokeswoman  approached  Miss  Beers 
with  the  proposition,  that,  if  she  would  make  Miss  Beu- 
lah  a  handsome  bonnet,  a  dozen  or  more  had  volun- 
teered to  buy  the  materials. 

"  Well,"  said  Miss  Mary  Jane,  wiping  her  spectacles, 
"  this  is  real  kind ;  and  I  make  no  doubt  but  what  Beu- 
lah  'd  think  the  same,  though  she 's  a  master-hand  to  be 
independent,  and  some  folks  say  proud.  Mabbe  she  is; 
but  I  know  she  could  n't  but  take  it  kind  of  friends  and 
neighbors  to  feel  for  her.  However,  there  ain't  no  need 
on't.  It  seems  that  Sary's  husband  ain't  very  fore- 
handed, and  she  's  got  a  dreadful  taste  for  the  millinery 
business :  so  she  's  gone  to  work  in  one  of  the  fust  shops 
there,  and  is  gettin'  great  wages,  for  her;  and  only  yes- 
terday there  come  a  box  by  express  for  Miss  Beulah, 
with  the  tastiest  bunnit  in  it  I  ever  see  in  my  life,  — 
good  black  velvet,  with  black  satin  kinder  puffed  into 
the  brim,  and  a  dark-green  wing  to  one  side  of  the  band 
and  a  big  bow  in  under  a  jet  buckle  behind.  I  tell  you 
it  was  everlastin'  pretty.  Sary  she  sent  a  note  to  say 
she  hoped  Aunt  Beulah  'd  give  her  the  pleasure  to  ac- 
cept it;  for  she'd  knowed  all  along  how  that  she  was 
the  cause  of  her  goin'  without  a  bunnit  all  summer  (I 
expect  her  ma  had  writ  to  her),  and  she  felt  real  bad 
about  it.     You  'd  better  b'lieve  Beulah  was  pleased." 

And  Miss  Beulah  was  pleased  again  when  the  women 
from  the  village  began  to  call  on  her  even  more  fre- 
quently than  before,  and  express  cordial  and  friendly 
interest  in  a  way  that  surprised  her,  all  unaware  as  she 

409 


MODERN  STORIES 

was  of  Miss  Beers's  enthusiastic  vindication  of  her 
character  before  the  sewing-circle.  Yet,  poor,  dear, 
silly  old  woman,  —  only  a  woman,  after  all,  —  nothing 
so  thrilled  and  touched  her  late-awakened  heart  as  little 
Janey's  soft  caresses  and  dimpled  patting  hands  on 
that  sallow  old  face,  when  she  climbed  into  her  lap  the 
next  Sunday,  and,  surveying  Miss  Beulah's  new  bonnet, 
exclaimed,  with  her  silvery  baby  voice,  "Pitty,  pitty 
bonnet ! " 

Jack  did  not  say  anything  about  it,  nor  did  the  con- 
gregation, though  on  more  than  one  female  face  beamed 
a  furtive  congratulatory  smile ;  and  Deacon  Flint  looked 
at  Deacon  Morse  across  the  aisle. 

If  there  is  any  moral  to  this  story,  as  no  doubt  there 
should  be,  it  lies  in  the  fact  that  Mrs.  Blake  never  again 
sat  down  in  a  chair  without  first  lifting  the  cushion. 


THE  ARCHBISHOP'S  VISIT 

By  Agnes  Repplier 

TT  was  the  middle  of  May  when  the  Archbishop 
-■-  came,  and  as  the  weather  was  warm,  we  wore 
our  white  frocks  for  the  occasion.  Very  immaculate 
we  looked,  ranged  in  a  deep,  shining  semicircle,  a  blue 
ribbon  around  every  neck,  and  gloves  on  every  folded 
hand.  It  would  have  been  considered  the  height  of 
impropriety  to  receive,  ungloved,  a  distinguished  visitor. 
As  the  prelate  entered,  accompanied  by  the  Superior- 
ess and  the  Mistress  General,  we  swept  him  a  deep 
curtsy,  —  oh,  the  hours  of  bitter  practice  it  took  to 
limber  my  stiff  little  knees  for  those  curtsies !  —  and 
then  broke  at  once  into  our  chorus  of  welcome :  — 

"With  happy  hearts  we  now  repair 
All  in  this  joyous  scene  to  share." 

There  were  five  verses.  When  we  had  finished,  we 
curtsied  again  and  sat  down,  while  Mary  Rawdon  and 
Eleanor  Hale  played  a  nervous  duet  upon  the  piano. 

The  Archbishop  looked  at  us  benignantly.  It  was 
said  of  him  that  he  dearly  loved  children,  but  that  he 
was  apt  to  be  bored  by  adults.  He  had  not  what  are 
called  "social  gifts,"  and  seldom  went  beyond  the  com- 
mon civilities  of  intercourse.  But  he  would  play  jack- 
straws  all  evening  with  half  a  dozen  children,  and 
apparently  find  himself  much  refreshed  by  the  enter- 

411 


MODERN  STORIES 

tainment.  His  eyes  wandered  during  the  duet  to  the 
ends  of  the  semicircle,  where  sat  the  very  little  girls, 
as  rigidly  still  as  cataleptics.  Wriggling  was  not  then 
deemed  the  prescriptive  right  of  childhood.  An  acute 
observer  might  perhaps  have  thought  that  the  Arch- 
bishop, seated  majestically  on  his  dais,  and  flanked 
by  Reverend  Mother  and  Madame  Bouron,  glanced 
wistfully  at  these  motionless  little  figures.  We  were, 
in  truth,  as  remote  from  him  as  if  we  had  been  on 
another  continent.  Easy  familiarity  with  our  superiors 
was  a  thing  undreamed  of  in  our  philosophy.  The 
standards  of  good  behavior  raised  an  impassable  bar- 
rier between  us. 

Frances  Fenton  made  the  address.  It  was  an  honor 
once  accorded  to  Elizabeth,  but  usually  reserved  as 
a  reward  for  superhuman  virtue.  Not  on  that  score 
had  Elizabeth  ever  enjoyed  it.  Frances  was  first  blue 
ribbon,  first  medallion,  and  head  of  the  Children  of 
Mary.  There  was  nothing  left  for  her  but  beatifica- 
tion. She  stepped  slowly,  and  with  what  was  called  a 
"modest  grace,"  into  the  middle  of  the  room,  curtsied, 
and  began :  — 

"Your  children's  simple  hearts  would  speak, 
But  cannot  find  the  words  they  seek. 
These  tones  no  music's  spell  can  lend ; 
And  eloquence  would  vainly  come 
To  greet  our  Father,  Guide,  and  Friend. 
Let  hearts  now  speak,  and  lips  be  dumb ! " 

"  Then  why  is  n't  she  dumb  ? "  whispered  Tony 
aggressively,  but  without  changing  a  muscle  of  her 
attentive  face. 

I  pretended  not  to  hear  her.   I  had  little  enough  dis- 

412 


THE  ARCHBISHOP'S  VISIT 

cretion,  Heaven  knows,  but  even  I  felt  the  ripe  unwis- 
dom of  whispering  at  such  a  time.  It  was  Mary  Raw- 
don's  absence,  at  the  piano,  I  may  observe,  that  placed 
me  in  this  perilous  proximity. 

"Our  reverence  fond  and  hopeful  prayer 
Will  deck  with  light  one  empty  place, 
And  fill  with  love  one  vacant  chair." 

"What  chair?"  asked  Tony,  and  again  I  pretended 
not  to  hear. 

"For  e'en  regret  can  wear  a  softened  grace, 
And  smiling  hope  in  whispers  low 
Will  oft  this  cherished  thought  bestow: 
Within  the  Eternal  City's  sacred  wall, 
He  who  has  blest  us  in  our  Convent  hall 
Can  now  to  us  earth's  holiest  blessing  bring 
From  God's  great  martyr  saint,  Rome's  pontiff  king." 

At  this  point,  Tony,  maddened  by  my  unresponsive- 
ness, shot  out  a  dexterous  little  leg  (I  don't  see  how 
she  dared  to  do  it,  when  our  skirts  were  so  short),  and, 
with  lightning  speed,  kicked  me  viciously  on  the  shins. 
The  anguish  was  acute,  but  my  sense  of  self-preserva- 
tion saved  me  from  so  much  as  a  grimace.  Madame 
Bouron's  lynx-like  gaze  was  traveling  down  our  ranks, 
and,  as  it  rested  on  me  for  an  instant,  I  felt  that  she 
must  see  the  smart.  Tony's  expression  was  one  of  rapt 
and  reverent  interest.  By  the  time  I  had  mastered  my 
emotions,  and  collected  my  thoughts,  the  address  was 
over,  and  the  Archbishop  was  saying  a  few  words  about 
his  coming  voyage,  and  about  the  Holy  Father,  for 
whom  he  bade  us  pray.  Then,  with  commendable 
promptness,  he  broached  the  important  subject  of  the 

413 


MODERN  STORIES 

conge.  There  was  the  usual  smiling  demur  on  Rever- 
end Mother's  part.  The  children  had  so  many  holi- 
days ("I  like  that!"  snorted  Tony),  so  many  interrup- 
tions to  their  work.  It  was  so  hard  to  bring  them  back 
again  to  quiet  and  orderly  ways.  If  she  granted  this 
indulgence,  we  must  promise  to  study  with  double  dili- 
gence for  the  approaching  examinations.  Finally  she 
yielded,  as  became  a  dutiful  daughter  of  the  Church; 
the  first  of  June,  ten  days  off,  was  fixed  as  the  date; 
and  we  gave  a  hearty  round  of  applause,  in  token  of 
our  gratitude  and  relief.  After  this,  we  rather  expected 
our  august  visitor  to  go  away;  but  his  eyes  had  strayed 
again  to  the  motionless  little  girls  at  the  horns  of  the 
semicircle;  and,  as  if  they  afforded  him  an  inspira- 
tion, he  said  something  in  low,  rather  urgent  tones  to 
Reverend  Mother,  —  something  to  which  she  listened 
graciously. 

"  They  will  be  only  too  proud  and  happy,"  we  heard 
her  murmur;  and  then  she  raised  her  voice. 

"Children,"  she  said  impressively,  "his  Grace  is 
good  enough  to  ask  that  you  should  escort  him  to  the 
woods  this  afternoon.    Put  on  your  hats  and  go." 

This  was  an  innovation !  Put  on  our  hats  at  four 
o'clock  —  the  hour  for  French  class  —  and  walk  to 
the  woods  with  the  Archbishop.  It  was  delightful,  of 
course,  but  a  trifle  awesome.  If,  in  his  ignorance,  he 
fancied  we  should  gambol  around  him  like  silly  lambs, 
he  was  soon  to  discover  his  mistake.  Our  line  of  march 
more  closely  resembled  that  of  a  well-drilled  army. 
Madame  Bouron  walked  on  his  right  hand,  and  Ma- 
dame Duncan  on  his  left.  The  ribbons,  the  graduates, 

414 


THE  ARCHBISHOP'S  VISIT 

and  a  few  sedate  girls  from  the  first  class  closed  into  a 
decorous  group,  half  of  them  walking  backwards,  — 
a  convent  custom  in  which  we  were  wonderfully  expert. 
The  flanks  of  the  army  were  composed  of  younger  and 
less  distinguished  girls,  while  the  small  fry  hovered  on 
its  borders,  out  of  sight  and  hearing.  We  moved  slowly, 
without  scattering,  and  without  obvious  exhilaration. 
I  was  occupied  in  freeing  my  mind  in  many  bitter  words 
to  Tony,  who  defended  her  conduct  on  the  score  of  my 
"setting  up  for  sainthood,"  —  an  accusation  the  novelty 
of  which  ought  to  have  made  it  agreeable. 

When  we  reached  the  lake,  a  tiny  sheet  of  water  with 
a  Lilliputian  island,  we  came  to  a  halt.  The  Archbishop 
had  evidently  expressed  some  desire,  or  at  least  some 
readiness,  to  trust  himself  upon  the  waves.  The  boat 
was  unmoored,  and  Frances  Fenton  and  Ella  Holrook 
rowed  him  carefully  around  the  island,  while  the  rest 
of  us  were  drawn  up  on  shore  to  witness  the  perform- 
ance. We  made,  no  doubt,  a  very  nice  picture  in  our 
white  frocks  and  blue  neck  ribbons;  but  we  were  spec- 
tators merely,  still  far  remote  from  any  sense  of  com- 
panionship. When  the  boat  was  close  to  shore,  the 
iirchbishop  refused  to  land.  He  sat  in  the  stern,  look- 
ing at  us  with  a  curious  smile.  He  was  strikingly  hand- 
some, —  a  long,  lean,  noble-looking  old  man,  —  and 
he  had  a  voice  of  wonderful  sweetness  and  power.  It 
was  said  that,  even  at  sixty -five,  he  sang  the  Mass  more 
beautifully  than  any  priest  in  his  diocese.  Therefore  it 
was  a  little  alarming  when  he  suddenly  asked :  — 
"  My  children,  do  you  know  any  pretty  songs  ?  " 
"Oh,  yes,  your  Grace,"  answered  Madame  Bouron. 

415 


MODERN  STORIES 

"Then  sing  me  something  now,"  said  the  Archbishop, 
still  with  that  inscrutable  smile. 

There  was  a  moment's  hesitation,  a  moment's  em- 
barrassment, and  then,  acting  under  instruction,  we 
sang  (or,  at  least,  some  of  us  did;  there  was  no  music 
in  my  soul)  the  "  Canadian  Boat-Song,"  and  "  Star  of 
the  Sea,"  —  appropriate,  both  of  them,  to  the  watery 
expanse  before  us. 

"Ave  Maria,  we  lift  our  eyes  to  thee ; 
Ora  pro  nobis  ;  't  is  night  far  o'er  the  sea." 

The  Archbishop  listened  attentively,  and  with  an 
evident  pleasure  that  must  have  been  wholly  disasso- 
ciated from  any  musical  sense.  Then  his  smile  deepened. 
"Would  you  like  me  to  sing  for  you  ?"  he  said. 

"Oh,  yes,  if  you  please,"  we  shrilled;  and  Madame 
Bouron  gave  us  a  warning  glance.  "  Be  very  still,  chil- 
dren," she  admonished.    "His  Grace  is  going  to  sing." 

His  Grace  settled  himself  comfortably  in  the  boat. 
His  amused  glance  traveled  over  our  expectant  faces, 
and  sought  as  usual  the  little  girls,  now  close  to  the 
water's  edge.  Then  he  cleared  his  throat  and,  as  I  am 
a  Christian  gentlewoman,  and  a  veracious  chronicler, 
this  is  the  song  he  sang:  — 

"In  King  Arthur's  reign,  a  merry  reign, 
Three  children  were  sent  from  their  homes, 
Were  sent  from  their  homes,  were  sent  from  their  homes, 
And  they  never  went  back  again. 

"The  first,  he  was  a  miller, 
The  second,  he  was  a  weaver, 
The  third,  he  was  a  little  tailor  boy, 
Three  big  rogues  together." 
416 


THE  ARCHBISHOP'S  VISIT 

"  Can't  you  join  in  the  chorus,  children  ? "  inter- 
rupted the  Archbishop.  "Come!  the  last  two  lines  of 
every  verse." 

"The  third,  he  was  a  little  tailor  boy, 
Three  big  rogues  together." 

Our  voices  rose  in  a  quavering  accompaniment  to 
his  mellifluous  notes.  We  were  petrified;  but,  even  in 
a  state  of  petrification,  we  did  as  we  were  bidden. 

"The  miller,  he  stole  corn, 
The  weaver,  he  stole  yarn, 
And  the  little  tailor  boy,  he  stole  broadcloth, 
To  keep  these  three  rogues  warm." 

"Chorus!"  commanded    the    Archbishop;  and    this 

time  our  voices  were  louder  and  more  assured. 

"And  the  little  tailor  boy,  he  stole  broadcloth, 
To  keep  these  three  rogues  warm." 

"  The  miller  was  drowned  in  his  dam, 
The  weaver  was  hung  by  his  yarn, 
But  the  Devil  ran  away  with  the  little  tailor  boy, 
With  the  broadcloth  under  his  arm." 

There  was  a  joyous  shout  from  our  ranks.  We  under- 
stood it  all  now.  The  Archbishop  was  misbehaving  him- 
self, was  flaunting  his  misbehavior  in  Madame  Bouron's 
face.  We  knew  very  well  what  would  be  said  to  us,  if 
we  sang  a  song  like  that,  without  the  Archiepiscopal 
sanction,  and  there  was  a  delicious  sense  of  impunity  in 
our  hearts,  as  we  vociferated  the  unhallowed  lines :  — 

"But  the  Devil  ran  away  with  the  little  tailor  boy, 
With  the  broadcloth  under  his  arm." 

Then  the  Archbishop  stepped  out  of  the  boat,  and 
there  was  a  timid  scramble  to  his  side.    The  barriers 

417 


MODERN   STORIES 

were  down.  He  had  knocked  at  our  hearts  in  the  Devil's 
name,  and  we  had  flung  them  wide.  The  return  to 
the  convent  was  like  a  rout ;  —  little  girls  wedging  their 
way  in  among  big  girls,  the  Second  Cours  contesting 
every  step  of  the  path  with  the  First  Cours,  the  most 
insignificant  children  lifted  suddenly  to  prominence 
and  distinction.  I  was  too  shy  to  do  more  than  move 
restlessly  on  the  outskirts  of  the  crowd ;  but  I  saw  Tony 
conversing  affably  with  the  Archbishop  (and  looking  as 
gentle  as  she  was  intelligent),  and  Viola  Milton  kiss- 
ing his  ring  with  the  assurance  of  an  infant  Aloysius. 
When  he  bade  us  good-by,  we  shouted  and  waved  our 
handkerchiefs  until  he  was  out  of  sight.  He  turned  at 
the  end  of  the  avenue,  and  waved  his  in  a  last  friendly 
salutation.  That  was  very  long  ago.  I  trust  that  in 
Paradise  the  Holy  Innocents  are  now  bearing  him  com- 
pany, for  I  truly  believe  his  soul  would  weary  of  the 
society  of  grown-up  saints. 


MAHALA  JOE 

By  Mary  Austin 


|~N  the  campoodie  of  Three  Pines,  which  you  proba- 
-■-  bly  know  better  by  its  Spanish  name  of  Tres  Pinos, 
there  is  an  Indian,  well  thought  of  among  his  own  peo- 
ple, who  goes  about  wearing  a  woman's  dress,  and  is 
known  as  Mahala  Joe.  He  should  be  about  fifty  years 
old  by  this  time,  and  has  a  quiet,  kindly  face.  Some- 
times he  tucks  up  the  skirt  of  his  woman's  dress  over 
a  pair  of  blue  overalls  when  he  has  a  man's  work  to  do, 
but  at  feasts  and  dances  he  wears  a  ribbon  around  his 
waist  and  a  handkerchief  on  his  head  as  the  other  ma- 
halas  do.  He  is  much  looked  to  because  of  his  know- 
ledge of  white  people  and  their  ways,  and  if  it  were  not 
for  the  lines  of  deep  sadness  that  fall  in  his  face  when 
at  rest,  one  might  forget  that  the  woman's  gear  is  the 
badge  of  an  all  but  intolerable  shame.  At  least  it  was 
so  used  by  the  Paiutes,  but  when  you  have  read  this 
full  and  true  account  of  how  it  was  first  put  on,  you 
may  not  think  it  so. 

Fifty  years  ago  the  valley  about  Tres  Pinos  was  all 
one  sea  of  moving  grass  and  dusky,  greenish  sage, 
cropped  over  by  deer  and  antelope,  north  as  far  as  To- 
gobah,  and  south  to  the  Bitter  Lake.  Beside  every  con- 
siderable stream  which  flowed  into  it  from  the  Sierras 

419 


MODERN  STORIES 

was  a  Paiute  campoodie,  and  all  they  knew  of  white 
people  was  by  hearsay  from  the  tribes  across  the  moun- 
tains. But  soon  enough  cattlemen  began  to  push  their 
herds  through  the  Sierra  passes  to  the  Paiutes'  feeding- 
ground.  The  Indians  saw  them  come,  and  though  they 
were  not  very  well  pleased,  they  held  still  by  the  coun- 
sel of  their  old  men ;  night  and  day  they  made  medicine 
and  prayed  that  the  white  men  might  go  away. 

Among  the  first  of  the  cattlemen  in  the  valley  about 
Tres  Pinos  was  Joe  Baker,  who  brought  a  young  wife, 
and  built  his  house  not  far  from  the  campoodie.  The 
Indian  women  watched  her  curiously  from  afar  because 
of  a  whisper  that  ran  among  the  wattled  huts.  When 
the  year  was  far  gone,  and  the  sun-cured  grasses  curled 
whitish  brown,  a  doctor  came  riding  hard  from  the 
fort  at  Edswick,  forty  miles  to  the  south,  and  though 
they  watched,  they  did  not  see  him  ride  away.  It  was 
the  third  day  at  evening  when  Joe  Baker  came  walk- 
ing towards  the  campoodie,  and  his  face  was  set  and 
sad.  He  carried  something  rolled  in  a  blanket,  and 
looked  anxiously  at  the  women  as  he  went  between  the 
huts.  It  was  about  the  hour  of  the  evening  meal,  and 
the  mahalas  sat  about  the  fires  watching  the  cooking- 
pots.  He  came  at  last  opposite  a  young  woman  who 
sat  nursing  her  child.  She  had  a  bright,  pleasant  face, 
and  her  little  one  seemed  about  six  months  old.  Her 
husband  stood  near  and  watched  them  with  great 
pride.  Joe  Baker  knelt  down  in  front  of  the  mahala, 
and  opened  the  roll  of  blankets.  He  showed  her  a 
day-old  baby  that  wrinkled  up  its  small  face  and 
cried. 

420 


MAHALA  JOE 

"Its  mother  is  dead,"  said  the  cattleman.  The  young 
Indian  mother  did  not  know  English,  but  she  did  not 
need  speech  to  know  what  had  happened.  She  looked 
pitifully  at  the  child,  and  at  her  husband  timidly.  Joe 
Baker  went  and  laid  his  rifle  and  cartridge  belt  at  the 
Paiute's  feet.  The  Indian  picked  up  the  gun  and  fin- 
gered it;  his  wife  smiled.  She  put  down  her  own  child, 
and  lifted  the  little  white  stranger  to  her  breast.  It 
nozzled  against  her  and  hushed  its  crying;  the  young 
mother  laughed. 

"See  how  greedy  it  is,"  she  said;  "it  is  truly  white." 
She  drew  up  the  blanket  around  the  child  and  com- 
forted it. 

The  cattleman  called  to  him  one  of  the  Indians  who 
could  speak  a  little  English. 

"  Tell  her,"  he  said,  "  that  I  wish  her  to  care  for  the 
child.  His  name  is  Walter.  Tell  her  that  she  is  to  come 
to  my  house  for  everything  he  needs,  and  for  every 
month  that  he  keeps  fat  and  well  she  shall  have  a  fat 
steer  from  my  herd."    So  it  was  agreed. 

As  soon  as  Walter  was  old  enough  he  came  to  sleep 
at  his  father's  house,  but  the  Indian  woman,  whom  he 
called  Ebia,  came  every  day  to  tend  him.  Her  son  was 
his  brother,  and  Walter  learned  to  speak  Paiute  before 
he  learned  English.  The  two  boys  were  always  together, 
but  as  yet  the  little  Indian  had  no  name.  It  is  not  the 
custom  among  Paiutes  to  give  names  to  those  who  have 
not  done  anything  worth  naming. 

"But  I  have  a  name,"  said  Walter,  "and  so  shall  he. 
I  will  call  him  Joe.  That  is  my  father's  name,  and  it  is 
a  good  name,  too." 

421 


MODERN  STORIES 

When  Mr.  Baker  was  away  with  the  cattle  Walter 
slept  at  the  campoodie,  and  Joe's  mother  made  him  a 
buckskin  shirt.  At  that  time  he  was  so  brown  with  the 
sun  and  the  wind  that  only  by  his  eyes  could  you  tell 
that  he  was  white;  he  was  also  very  happy.  But  as  this 
is  to  be  the  story  of  how  Joe  came  to  the  wearing  of  a 
woman's  dress,  I  cannot  tell  you  all  the  plays  they  had, 
how  they  went  on  their  first  hunting,  nor  what  they 
found  in  the  creek  of  Tres  Pinos. 

The  beginning  of  the  whole  affair  of  Mahala  Joe 
must  be  laid  to  the  arrow-maker.  The  arrow-maker 
had  a  stiff  knee  from  a  wound  in  a  long-gone  battle, 
and  for  that  reason  he  sat  in  the  shade  of  his  wickiup, 
and  chipped  arrow  points  from  flakes  of  obsidian  that 
the  young  men  brought  him  from  Togobah,  fitting  them 
to  shafts  of  reeds  from  the  river  marsh.  He  used  to 
coax  the  boys  to  wade  in  the  brown  water  and  cut  the 
reeds,  for  the  dampness  made  his  knee  ache.  They 
drove  bargains  with  him  for  arrows  for  their  own  hunt- 
ing, or  for  the  sake  of  the  stories  he  could  tell.  For  an 
armful  of  reeds  he  would  make  three  arrows,  and  for  a 
double  armful  he  would  tell  tales.  These  were  mostly 
of  great  huntings  and  old  wars,  but  when  it  was  winter, 
and  no  snakes  in  the  long  grass  to  overhear,  he  would 
tell  Wonder-stories.  The  boys  would  lie  with  their  toes 
in  the  warm  ashes,  and  the  arrow-maker  would  begin. 

"You  can  see,"  said  the  arrow-maker,  "on  the  top  of 
Waban  the  tall  boulder  looking  on  the  valleys  east  and 
west.  That  is  the  very  boundary  between  the  Paiute 
country  and  Shoshone  land.  The  boulder  is  a  hundred 
times  taller  than  the  tallest  man,  and  thicker  through 

422 


MAHALA  JOE 

than  six  horses  standing  nose  to  tail;  the  shadow  of  it 
falls  all  down  the  slope.  At  mornings  it  falls  toward 
the  Paiute  peoples,  and  evenings  it  falls  on  Shoshone 
land.  Now  on  this  side  of  the  valley,  beginning  at  the 
campoodie,  you  will  see  a  row  of  pine  trees  standing  all 
upstream  one  behind  another.  See,  the  long  branches 
grow  on  the  side  toward  the  hill ;  and  some  may  tell  you 
it  is  because  of  the  way  the  wind  blows,  but  I  say  it  is 
because  they  reach  out  in  a  hurry  to  get  up  the  moun- 
tains.  Now  I  will  tell  you  how  these  things  came  about. 

"Very  long  ago  all  the  Paiutes  of  this  valley  were 
ruled  by  two  brothers,  a  chief  and  a  medicine  man, 
Winnedumah  and  Tinnemaha.  They  were  both  very 
wise,  and  one  of  them  never  did  anything  without  the 
other.  They  taught  the  tribes  not  to  war  upon  each 
other,  but  to  stand  fast  as  brothers,  and  so  they  brought 
peace  into  the  land.  At  that  time  there  were  no  white 
people  heard  of,  and  game  was  plenty.  The  young  hon- 
ored the  old,  and  nothing  was  as  it  is  now." 

When  the  arrow-maker  came  to  this  point,  the  boys 
fidgeted  with  their  toes,  and  made  believe  to  steal  the 
old  man's  arrows  to  distract  his  attention.  They  did 
not  care  to  hear  about  the  falling  off  of  the  Paiutes; 
they  wished  to  have  the  tale.  Then  the  arrow-maker 
would  hurry  on  to  the  time  when  there  arose  a  war 
between  the  Paiutes  and  the  Shoshones.  Then  Winne- 
dumah put  on  his  war  bonnet,  and  Tinnemaha  made 
medicine.  Word  went  around  among  the  braves  that 
if  they  stood  together  man  to  man  as  brothers,  then 
they  should  have  this  war. 

"And  so  they  might,"  said  the  arrow-maker,  "but 

423 


MODERN  STORIES 

at  last  their  hearts  turned  to  water.  The  tribes  came 
together  on  the  top  of  Waban.  Yes;  where  the  boulder 
now  stands,  for  that  is  the  boundary  of  our  lands,  for 
no  brave  would  fight  off  his  own  ground  for  fear  of  the 
other's  medicine.  So  they  fought.  The  eagles  heard 
the  twang  of  the  bowstring,  and  swung  down  from 
White  Mountain.  The  vultures  smelled  the  smell  of 
battle,  and  came  in  from  Shoshone  land.  Their  wings 
were  dark  like  a  cloud,  and  underneath  the  arrows  flew 
like  hail.  The  Paiutes  were  the  better  bowmen,  and 
they  caught  the  Shoshone  arrows  where  they  struck  in 
the  earth  and  shot  them  back  again.  Then  the  Sho- 
shones  were  ashamed,  and  about  the  time  of  the  sun 
going  down  they  called  upon  their  medicine  men,  and 
one  let  fly  a  magic  arrow,  —  for  none  other  would  touch 
him,  —  and  it  struck  in  the  throat  of  Tinnemaha. 

"Now  when  that  befell,"  went  on  the  arrow-maker, 
"the  braves  forgot  the  word  that  had  gone  before  the 
battle,  for  they  turned  their  backs  to  the  medicine  man, 
all  but  Winnedumah,  his  brother,  and  fled  this  way 
from  Waban.  Then  stood  Winnedumah  by  Tinnemaha, 
for  that  was  the  way  of  those  two ;  whatever  happened, 
one  would  not  leave  the  other.  There  was  none  left  to 
carry  on  the  fight,  and  yet  since  he  was  so  great  a  chief 
the  Shoshones  were  afraid  to  take  him,  and  the  sun 
went  down.  In  the  dusk  they  saw  a  bulk,  and  they  said, 
'He  is  still  standing;'  but  when  it  was  morning  light 
they  saw  only  a  great  rock,  so  you  see  it  to  this  day. 
As  for  the  braves  who  ran  away,  they  were  changed 
to  pine  trees,  but  in  their  hearts  they  are  cowards  yet, 
therefore  they  stretch  out  their  arms  and  strive  toward 

424 


MAHALA  JOE 

the  mountain.  And  that,"  said  the  arrow-maker,  "is 
how  the  tall  stones  came  to  be  on  the  top  of  Waban. 
But  it  was  not  in  my  day  nor  my  father's."  Then  the 
boys  would  look  up  at  Winnedumah,  and  were  half 
afraid,  and  as  for  the  tale,  they  quite  believed  it. 

The  arrow-maker  was  growing  old.  His  knee  hurt 
him  in  cold  weather,  and  he  could  not  make  arrow  points 
fast  enough  to  satisfy  the  boys,  who  lost  a  great  many 
in  the  winter  season  shooting  at  ducks  in  the  tulares. 
Walter's  father  promised  him  a  rifle  when  he  was  fif- 
teen, but  that  was  years  away.  There  was  a  rock  in 
the  canon  behind  Tres  Pinos  with  a  great  crack  in  the 
top.  When  the  young  men  rode  to  the  hunting,  they 
shot  each  an  arrow  at  it,  and  if  it  stuck  it  was  a  promise 
of  good  luck.  The  boys  scaled  the  rock  by  means  of  a 
grapevine  ladder,  and  pried  out  the  old  points.  This 
gave  them  an  idea. 

"Upon  Waban  where  the  fighting  was,  there  must 
be  a  great  many  arrow  points,"  said  Walter. 

"So  there  must  be,"  said  Joe. 

"Let  us  go  after  them,"  said  the  white  boy;  but  the 
other  dared  not,  for  no  Paiute  would  go  within  a 
bowshot  of  Winnedumah;  nevertheless,  they  talked  the 
matter  over. 

"  How  near  would  you  go  ?  "  asked  Walter. 

"As  near  as  a  strong  man  might  shoot  an  arrow," 
said  Joe. 

"If  you  will  go  so  far,"  said  Walter,  "I  will  go  the 
rest  of  the  way." 

"It  is  a  two  days'  journey,"  said  the  Paiute,  but  he 
did  not  make  any  other  objection. 

425 


MODERN  STORIES 

It  was  a  warm  day  of  spring  when  they  set  out.  The 
cattleman  was  off  to  the  river  meadow,  and  Joe's  mo- 
ther was  out  with  the  other  mahalas  gathering  taboose. 

"If  I  were  fifteen,  and  had  my  rifle,  I  would  not  be 
afraid  of  anything,"  said  Walter. 

"  But  in  that  case  we  would  not  need  to  go  after  arrow 
points,"  said  the  Indian  boy. 

They  climbed  all  day  in  a  bewildering  waste  of  boul- 
ders and  scrubby  trees.  They  could  see  Winnedumah 
shining  whitely  on  the  ridge  ahead,  but  when  they  had 
gone  down  into  the  gully  with  great  labor,  and  up  the 
other  side,  there  it  stood  whitely  just  another  ridge  away. 

"It  is  like  the  false  water  in  the  desert,"  said  Walter. 
"  It  goes  farther  from  you,  and  when  you  get  to  it  there 
is  no  water  there." 

"It  is  magic  medicine,"  said  Indian  Joe.  "No  good 
comes  of  going  against  medicine." 

"If  you  are  afraid,"  said  Walter,  "why  do  you  not 
say  so  ?  You  may  go  back  if  you  like,  and  I  will  go  on 
by  myself." 

Joe  would  not  make  any  answer  to  that.  They  were 
hot  and  tired,  and  awed  by  the  stillness  of  the  hills. 
They  kept  on  after  that,  angry  and  apart;  sometimes 
they  lost  sight  of  each  other  among  the  boulders  and 
underbrush.  But  it  seemed  that  it  must  really  have 
been  as  one  or  the  other  of  them  had  said,  for  when 
they  came  out  on  a  high  mesa  presently,  there  was  no 
Winnedumah  anywhere  in  sight.  They  would  have 
stopped  then  and  taken  counsel,  but  they  were  too  angry 
for  that ;  so  they  walked  on  in  silence,  and  the  day  failed 
rapidly,  as  it  will  do  in  high  places.     They  began  to 

426 


MAHALA  JOE 

draw  near  together  and  to  be  afraid.  At  last  the  Indian 
boy  stopped  and  gathered  the  tops  of  bushes  together, 
and  began  to  weave  a  shelter  for  the  night;  and  when 
Walter  saw  that  he  made  it  large  enough  for  two,  he 
spoke  to  him. 

"Are  we  lost?"  he  said. 

"We  are  lost  for  to-night,"  said  Joe,  "but  in  the 
morning  we  will  find  ourselves." 

They  ate  dried  venison  and  drank  from  the  wicker 
bottle,  and  huddled  together  because  of  the  dark  and 
the  chill. 

"  Why  do  we  not  see  the  stone  any  more  ?  "  asked 
Walter,  in  a  whisper. 

"I  do  not  know,"  said  Joe.  "I  think  it  has  gone 
away." 

"  Will  he  come  after  us  ? " 

"I  do  not  know.  I  have  on  my  elk's  tooth,"  said 
Joe,  and  he  clasped  the  charm  that  hung  about  his 
neck.  They  started  and  shivered,  hearing  a  stone  crash 
far  away  as  it  rolled  down  the  mountain-side,  and  the 
wind  began  to  move  among  the  pines. 

"  Joe,"  said  Walter,  "  I  am  sorry  I  said  that  you 
were  afraid." 

"It  is  nothing,"  said  the  Paiute.  "Besides,  I  am 
afraid." 

"So  am  I,"  whispered  the  other.  "Joe,"  he  said 
again,  after  a  long  silence,  "  if  he  comes  after  us,  what 
shall  we  do  ?  " 

"We  will  stay  by  each  other." 

"Like  the  two  brothers,  whatever  happens,"  said 
the  white  boy,  "forever  and  ever." 

427 


MODERN  STORIES 

"We  are  two  brothers,"  said  Joe. 

"Will  you  swear  it?" 

"On  my  elk's  tooth." 

Then  they  each  took  the  elk's  tooth  in  his  hand  and 
made  a  vow  that  whether  Winnedumah  came  down 
from  his  rock,  or  whether  the  Shoshones  found  them, 
come  what  would,  they  would  stand  together.  Then 
they  were  comforted,  and  lay  down,  holding  each  other's 
hands. 

"I  hear  some  one  walking,"  said  Walter. 

"It  is  the  wind  among  the  pines,"  said  Joe. 

A  twig  snapped.    "  What  is  that  ? "  said  the  one  boy. 

"It  is  a  fox  or  a  coyote  passing,"  said  the  other,  but 
he  knew  better.  They  lay  still,  scarcely  breathing,  and 
throbbed  with  fear.  They  felt  a  sense  of  a  presence 
approaching  in  the  night,  the  whisper  of  a  moccasin  on 
the  gravelly  soil,  the  swish  of  displaced  bushes  springing 
back  to  place.  They  saw  a  bulk  shape  itself  out  of  the 
dark;  it  came  and  stood  over  them,  and  they  saw  that 
it  was  an  Indian  looking  larger  in  the  gloom.  He  spoke 
to  them,  and  whether  he  spoke  in  a  strange  tongue,  or 
they  were  too  frightened  to  understand,  they  could  not 
tell. 

"  Do  not  kill  us ! "  cried  Walter,  but  the  Indian  boy 
made  no  sound.  The  man  took  Walter  by  the  shoulders 
and  lifted  him  up. 

"White,"  said  he. 

"We  are  brothers,"  said  Joe;  "we  have  sworn  it." 

"So,"  said  the  man,  and  it  seemed  as  if  he  smiled. 

"Until  we  die,"  said  both  the  boys.  The  Indian  gave 
a  grunt. 

428 


MAHALA  JOE 

"A  white  man,"  he  said,  "is  —  white."  It  did  not 
seem  as  if  that  was  what  he  meant  to  say. 

"  Come,  I  will  take  you  to  your  people.  They  search 
for  you  about  the  foot  of  Waban.  These  three  hours  I 
have  watched  you  and  them."  The  boys  clutched  at 
each  other  in  the  dark.  They  were  sure  now  who  spoke 
to  them,  and  between  fear  and  fatigue  and  the  cramp 
of  cold  they  staggered  and  stumbled  as  they  walked. 
The  Indian  stopped  and  considered  them. 

"I  cannot  carry  both,"  he  said. 

"I  am  the  older,"  said  Joe;  "I  can  walk."  Without 
any  more  words  the  man  picked  up  Walter,  who  trem- 
bled, and  walked  off  down  the  slope.  They  went  a  long 
way  through  the  scrub  and  under  the  tamarack  pines. 
The  man  was  naked  to  the  waist,  and  had  a  quiver  full 
of  arrows  on  his  shoulder.  The  buckthorn  branches 
whipped  and  scraped  against  his  skin,  but  he  did  not 
seem  to  mind.  At  last  they  came  to  a  place  where  they 
could  see  a  dull  red  spark  across  an  open  flat. 

"That,"  said  the  Indian,  "is  the  fire  of  your  people. 
They  missed  you  at  afternoon,  and  have  been  looking 
for  you.  From  my  station  on  the  hill  I  saw."  Then  he 
took  the  boy  by  the  shoulders. 

"Look  you,"  he  said,  "no  good  comes  of  mixing 
white  and  brown,  but  now  that  the  vow  is  made,  see 
to  the  keeping  of  it."  Then  he  stepped  back  from  them 
and  seemed  to  melt  into  the  dark.  Ahead  of  them  the 
boys  saw  the  light  of  the  fire  flare  up  with  new  fuel, 
and  shadows,  which  they  knew  for  the  figures  of  their 
friends,  moved  between  them  and  the  flame.  Swiftly 
as  two  scared  rabbits  they  ran  on  toward  the  glow. 

429 


MODERN  STORIES 

When  Walter  and  Joe  had  told  them  the  story  at  the 
campoodie,  the  Paiutes  made  a  great  deal  of  it,  espe- 
cially the  arrow-maker. 

"Without  a  doubt,"  he  said,  "it  was  Winnedumah 
who  came  to  you,  and  not,  as  some  think,  a  Shoshone 
who  was  spying  on  our  land.  It  is  a  great  mystery.  But 
since  you  have  made  a  vow  of  brothers,  you  should  keep 
it  after  the  ancient  use."  Then  he  took  a  knife  of  ob- 
sidian and  cut  their  arms,  and  rubbed  a  little  of  the 
blood  of  each  upon  the  other. 

"Now,"  he  said,  "you  are  one  fellowship  and  one 
blood,  and  that  is  as  it  should  be,  for  you  were  both 
nursed  at  one  breast.    See  that  you  keep  the  vow." 

"We  will,"  said  the  boys  solemnly,  and  they  went 
out  into  the  sunlight  very  proud  of  the  blood  upon  their 
bared  arms,  holding  by  each  other's  hands. 

II 

When  Walter  was  fifteen  his  father  gave  him  a  rifle, 
as  he  had  promised,  and  a  word  of  advice  with  it. 

"Learn  to  shoot  quickly  and  well,"  he  said,  "and 
never  ride  out  from  home  without  it.  No  one  can  tell 
what  this  trouble  with  the  Indians  may  come  to  in  the 
end  " 

Walter  rode  straight  to  the  campoodie.  He  was  never 
happy  in  any  of  his  gifts  until  he  had  showed  them  to 
Joe.  There  was  a  group  of  older  men  at  the  camp, 
quartering  a  deer  which  they  had  brought  in.  One  of 
them,  called  Scar-Face,  looked  at  Walter  with  a  leering 
frown. 

430 


MAHALA  JOE 

"See,"  he  said,  "they  are  arming  the  very  children 
with  guns." 

"  My  father  promised  it  to  me  many  years  ago,"  said 
Walter.    "It  is  my  birthday  gift." 

He  could  not  explain  why,  and  he  grew  angry  at  the 
man's  accusing  tone,  but  after  it  he  did  not  like  show- 
ing his  present  to  the  Indians. 

He  called  Joe,  and  they  went  over  to  a  cave  in  the 
black  rock  where  they  had  kept  their  boyish  treasures 
and  planned  their  plays  since  they  were  children.  Joe 
thought  the  rifle  a  beauty,  and  turned  it  over  admir- 
ingly in  the  shadow  of  the  cave.  They  tried  shooting 
at  a  mark,  and  then  decided  to  go  up  Oak  Creek  for  a 
shot  at  the  gray  squirrels.  There  they  sighted  a  band 
of  antelope  that  led  them  over  a  tongue  of  hills  into 
Little  Round  Valley,  where  they  found  themselves  at 
noon  twelve  miles  from  home  and  very  hungry.  They 
had  no  antelope,  but  four  squirrels  and  a  grouse.  The 
two  boys  made  a  fire  for  cooking  in  a  quiet  place  by  a 
spring  of  sweet  water. 

"You  may  have  my  rifle  to  use  as  often  as  you  like," 
said  Walter,  "but  you  must  not  lend  it  to  any  one  in 
the  campoodie,  especially  to  Scar-Face.  My  father  says 
he  is  the  one  who  is  stirring  up  all  this  trouble  with  the 
whites." 

"The  white  men  do  not  need  any  one  to  help  them 
get  into  trouble,"  said  Joe.  "  They  can  do  that  for  them- 
selves." 

"It  is  the  fault  of  the  Indians,"  said  Walter.  "If 
they  did  not  shoot  the  cattle,  the  white  men  would  leave 
them  alone." 

431 


MODERN  STORIES 

"But  if  the  white  men  come  first  to  our  lands  with 
noise  and  trampling  and  scare  away  the  game,  what 
then  will  they  shoot  ? "  asked  the  Paiute. 

Walter  did  not  make  any  answer  to  that.  He  had 
often  gone  hunting  with  Joe  and  his  father,  and  he  knew 
what  it  meant  to  walk  far,  and  fasting,  after  game  made 
shy  by  the  rifles  of  cattlemen,  and  at  last  to  return  empty 
to  the  campoodie  where  there  were  women  and  children 
with  hungry  eyes. 

"Is  it  true,"  he  said  after  a  while,  "that  Scar-Face 
is  stirring  up  all  the  Indians  in  the  valley?" 

" How  should  I  know  ? "  said  Joe;  " I  am  only  a  boy, 
and  have  not  killed  big  game.  I  am  not  admitted  to 
the  counsels  of  the  old  men.  What  does  it  matter  to  us 
whether  of  old  feuds  or  new  ?  Are  we  not  brothers 
sworn  ?  " 

Then,  as  the  dinner  was  done,  they  ate  each  of  the 
other's  kill,  for  it  was  the  custom  of  the  Paiutes  at  that 
time  that  no  youth  should  eat  game  of  his  own  killing 
until  he  was  fully  grown.  As  they  walked  homeward  the 
boys  planned  to  get  permission  to  go  up  on  Waban  for 
a  week,  after  mountain  sheep,  before  the  snows  began. 

Mr.  Baker  looked  grave  when  Walter  spoke  to  him. 

"My  boy,"  he  said,  "I  wish  you  would  not  plan  long 
trips  like  this  without  first  speaking  to  me.  It  is  hardly 
safe  in  the  present  state  of  feeling  among  the  Indians 
to  let  you  go  with  them  in  this  fashion.  A  whole  week, 
too.  But  as  you  have  already  spoken  of  it,  and  it  has 
probably  been  talked  over  in  the  campoodie,  for  me 
to  refuse  now  would  look  as  if  I  suspected  something, 
and  might  bring  about  the  thing  I  most  fear." 

432 


MAHALA  JOE 

"You  should  not  be  afraid  for  me  with  Joe,  father, 
for  we  are  brothers  sworn,"  said  Walter,  and  he  told  his 
father  how  they  had  mixed  the  blood  of  their  arms  in 
the  arrow-maker's  hut  after  they  had  come  back  from 
their  first  journey  on  Waban. 

"Well,"  said  Mr.  Baker,  who  had  not  heard  of  this 
before,  "  I  know  that  they  set  great  store  by  these  super- 
stitious customs,  but  I  have  not  much  faith  in  the  word 
of  a  Paiute  when  he  is  dealing  with  a  white  man.  How- 
ever, you  had  better  go  on  with  this  hunting  trip.  Take 
Hank  with  you,  and  Joe's  father,  and  do  not  be  gone 
more  than  five  days  at  the  outside." 

Hank  was  one  of  Mr.  Baker's  vaqueros,  and  very 
glad  to  get  off  for  a  few  days'  hunting  on  the  blunt  top 
of  Waban.  On  the  Monday  following  they  left  the  Baker 
ranch  for  the  mountain.  As  the  two  boys  rode  up  the 
boulder-strewn  slope  it  set  them  talking  of  the  first  time 
they  had  gone  that  way  on  their  fruitless  hunt  for  arrow 
points  about  the  foot  of  Winnedumah,  and  of  all  that 
happened  to  them  at  that  time.  The  valley  lay  below 
them  full  of  purple  mist,  and  away  by  the  creek  of 
Tres  Pinos  the  brown,  wattled  huts  of  the  campoodie 
like  great  wasps'  nests  stuck  in  the  sage.  Hank  and 
Joe's  father,  with  the  pack  horses,  were  ahead  of  them 
far  up  the  trail;  Joe  and  Walter  let  their  own  ponies 
lag,  and  the  nose  of  one  touched  the  flank  of  the 
other  as  they  climbed  slowly  up  the  steep,  and  the 
boys  turned  their  faces  to  each  other,  as  if  they  had 
some  vague  warning  that  they  would  not  ride  so  and 
talk  familiarly  again,  as  if  the  boiling  anger  of  the 
tribes  in  the  valley  had  brewed  a   sort  of  mist  that 

433 


MODERN  STORIES 

rose  up  and  gloomed  the  pleasant  air  on  the  slope  of 
Waban. 

"Joe,"  said  Walter,  "my  father  says  if  it  came  to 
a  fight  between  the  white  settlers  and  the  Paiutes,  that 
you  would  not  hold  by  the  word  we  have  passed." 

"That  is  the  speech  of  a  white  man,"  said  Joe. 

"But  would  you?"  the  other  insisted. 

"I  am  a  Paiute,"  said  Joe;  "I  will  hold  by  my  peo- 
ple, also  by  my  word;  I  will  not  fight  against  you." 

"  Nor  I  against  you,  but  I  would  not  like  to  have  my 
father  think  you  had  broken  your  word." 

"Have  no  care,"  said  the  Indian,  "I  will  not  break 
it." 

Mr.  Baker  looked  anxiously  after  his  son  as  he  rode 
to  the  hunting  on  Waban;  he  looked  anxiously  up  that 
trail  every  hour  until  the  boy  came  again,  and  that, 
as  it  turned  out,  was  at  the  end  of  three  days.  For  the 
trouble  among  the  Indians  had  come  to  something  at 
last,  —  the  wasps  were  all  out  of  nest  by  the  brown 
creeks,  and  with  them  a  flight  of  stinging  arrows.  The 
trouble  began  at  Cottonwood,  and  the  hunting  party 
on  Waban  the  second  day  out  saw  a  tall,  pale  column 
of  smoke  that  rose  up  from  the  notch  of  the  hill  behind 
the  settlement,  and  fanned  out  slowly  into  the  pale 
blueness  of  the  sky. 

It  went  on  evenly,  neither  more  nor  less,  thick  smoke 
from  a  fire  of  green  wood  steadily  tended.  Before  noon 
another  rose  from  the  mouth  of  Oak  Creek,  and  a  third 
from  Tunawai.  They  waved  and  beckoned  to  one  an- 
other, calling  to  counsel. 

"Signal  fires,"  said  Hank;  "that  means  mischief. ** 

434 


MAHALA  JOE 

And  from  that  on  he  went  with  his  rifle  half  cocked, 
and  walked  always  so  that  he  might  keep  Joe's  father 
in  full  view.  By  night  that  same  day  there  were  seven 
smoke  trees  growing  up  in  the  long  valley,  and  spread- 
ing thin,  pale  branches  to  the  sky.  There  was  no  zest 
left  in  the  hunt,  and  in  the  morning  they  owned  it.  Wal- 
ter was  worried  by  what  he  knew  his  father's  anxiety 
must  be.  Then  the  party  began  to  ride  down  again,  and 
always  Hank  made  the  Indian  go  before.  Away  by  the 
foot  of  Oppapago  rose  a  black  volume  of  smoke,  thick, 
and  lighted  underneath  by  flames.  It  might  be  the  reek 
of  a  burning  ranch  house.  The  boys  were  excited  and 
afraid.  They  talked  softly  and  crowded  their  ponies 
together  on  the  trail. 

"  Joe,"  said  Walter  whisperingly,  "  if  there  is  battle, 
you  will  have  to  go  to  it." 

"Yes,"  said  Joe. 

"And  you  will  fight;  otherwise  they  will  call  you  a 
coward,  and  if  you  run  away,  they  will  kill  you." 

"So  I  suppose,"  said  Joe. 

"Or  they  will  make  you  wear  a  woman's  dress  like 
To-go-na-tee,  the  man  who  got  up  too  late."  This  was 
a  reminder  from  one  of  the  arrow-maker's  tales.  "  But 
you  have  promised  not  to  fight." 

"Look  you,"  said  the  Indian  boy;  "if  a  white  man 
came  to  kill  me,  I  would  kill  him.  That  is  right.  But 
I  will  not  fight  you  nor  your  father's  house.  That  is  my 
vow." 

The  white  boy  put  out  his  hand,  and  laid  it  on  the 
flank  of  the  foremost  pony.  The  Indian  boy's  fingers 
came  behind  him,  and  crept  along  the  pony's  back  until 

435 


MODERN  STORIES 

they  reached  the  other  hand.   They  rode  forward  with- 
out talking. 

Toward  noon  they  made  out  horsemen  riding  on  the 
trail  below  them.  As  it  wound  in  and  out  around  the 
blind  gullies  they  saw  and  lost  sight  of  them  a  dozen 
times.  At  last,  where  the  fringe  of  the  tall  trees  began, 
they  came  face  to  face.  It  was  Mr.  Baker  and  a  party 
of  five  men;  they  carried  rifles  and  had  set  and  anx- 
ious looks. 

"  What  will  you  have  ?  "  said  Indian  Joe's  father,  as 
they  drew  up  before  him  under  a  tamarack  pine. 

"My  son,"  said  the  cattleman. 

"Is  there  war?"  said  the  Indian. 

"There  is  war.    Come,  Walter." 

The  boys  were  still  and  scared.  Slowly  Hank  and 
Walter  drew  their  horses  out  of  the  path  and  joined 
the  men.  Indian  Joe  and  his  father  passed  forward  on 
the  trail. 

"  Do  them  no  harm,"  said  Joe  Baker,  to  those  that 
were  with  him. 

"Good-by,  Joe,"  said  Walter,  half  aloud. 

The  other  did  not  turn  his  head,  but  as  he  went  they 
noticed  that  he  had  bared  his  right  arm  from  the  hunt- 
ing shirt,  and/ 'an  inch  above  the  elbow  showed  a  thin, 
white  scar.  Walter  had  the  twin  of  that  mark  under 
his  flannels. 

Mr.  Baker  did  not  mind  fighting  Indians ;  he  thought 
it  a  good  thing  to  have  their  troubles  settled  all  at  once 
in  this  way,  but  he  did  not  want  his  son  mixed  up  in  it. 
The  first  thing  he  did  when  he  got  home  was  to  send 
him  off  secretly  by  night  to  the  fort,  and  from  there 

436 


MAHALA  JOE 

lie  passed  over  the  mountains  with  other  of  the  settlers' 
families  under  strong  escort,  and  finally  went  to  his 
mother's  people  in  the  East,  and  was  put  to  school.  As 
it  turned  out  he  never  came  back  to  Tres  Pinos,  he  does 
not  come  into  this  story  any  more. 

When  the  first  smoke  rose  up  that  showed  where  the 
fierce  hate  of  the  Paiutes  had  broken  into  flame,  the 
Indians  took  their  women  and  children  away  from  the 
pleasant  open  slopes,  and  hid  them  in  deep  canons  in 
secret  places  of  the  rocks.  There  they  feathered  arrows, 
and  twisted  bowstrings  of  the  sinew  of  deer.  And  be- 
cause there  were  so  many  grave  things  done,  and  it 
was  not  the  custom  for  boys  to  question  their  elders, 
Joe  never  heard  how  Walter  had  been  sent  away.  He 
thought  him  still  at  the  ranch  with  his  father,  and  it  is 
because  of  this  mistake  that  there  is  any  more  story  at 
all. 

You  may  be  sure  that,  of  those  two  boys,  Joe's  was 
the  deeper  loving,  for,  besides  having  grown  up  together, 
Walter  was  white,  therefore  thinking  himself,  and  mak- 
ing the  other  believe  it,  the  better  of  the  two.  But  for 
this  Walter  made  no  difference  in  his  behavior;  had 
Joe  to  eat  at  his  table,  and  would  have  him  sleep  in  his 
bed,  but  Joe  laughed,  and  lay  on  the  floor.  All  this  was 
counted  a  kindness  and  a  great  honor  in  the  campoodie. 
Walter  could  find  out  things  by  looking  in  a  book,  which 
was  sheer  magic,  and  had  taught  Joe  to  write  a  little, 
that  so  he  could  send  word  by  means  of  a  piece  of  paper, 
which  was  cleverer  than  the  tricks  Joe  had  taught  him, 
of  reading  the  signs  of  antelope  and  elk  and  deer.  The 
white  boy  was  to  the  Indian  a  little  of  all  the  heroes  and 

437 


MODERN  STORIES 

bright  ones  of  the  arrow-maker's  tales  come  alive  again. 
Therefore  he  quaked  in  his  heart  when  he  heard  the 
rumors  that  ran  about  the  camp. 

The  war  began  about  Cottonwood,  and  ran  like  wild- 
fire that  licked  up  all  the  ranches  in  its  course.  Then 
the  whites  came  strongly  against  the  Paiutes  at  the 
Stone  Corral,  and  made  an  end  of  the  best  of  their 
fighting  men.  Then  the  Indians  broke  out  in  the  north, 
and  at  last  it  came  to  such  a  pass  that  the  very  boys 
must  do  fighting,  and  the  women  make  bowstrings. 
The  cattlemen  turned  into  Baker's  ranch  as  a  centre, 
and  all  the  northern  campoodies  gathered  together  to 
attack  them.  They  had  not  much  to  hope  for,  only 
to  do  as  much  killing  as  possible  before  the  winter  set 
in  with  the  hunger  and  the  deep  snows. 

By  this  time  Joe's  father  was  dead,  and  his  mother 
had  brought  the  boy  a  quiver  full  of  arrows  and  a  new 
bowstring,  and  sent  him  down  to  the  battle. 

And  Joe  went  hotly  enough  to  join  the  men  of  the 
other  village,  nursing  his  bow  with  great  care,  remem- 
bering his  father;  but  when  he  came  to  counsel  and 
found  where  the  fight  must  be,  his  heart  turned  again, 
for  he  remembered  his  friend.  The  braves  camped  by 
Little  Round  Valley,  and  he  thought  of  the  talk  he  and 
Walter  had  there;  the  war  party  went  over  the  tongue 
of  hills,  and  Joe  saw  Winnedumah  shining  whitely  on 
Waban,  and  remembered  his  boyish  errand,  the  mys- 
tery of  the  tall,  strange  warrior  that  came  upon  them 
in  the  night,  their  talk  in  the  hut  of  the  arrow-maker, 
and  the  vow  that  came  afterward. 

The  Indians  came  down  a  ravine  toward  Tres  Pinos, 

438 


MAHALA  JOE 

and  there  met  a  band  of  horses  which  some  of  their 
party  had  run  in  from  the  ranches;  among  them  was 
a  pinto  pony  which  Walter  had  used  to  ride,  and  it 
came  to  Joe's  hand  when  he  called.  Then  the  boy  won- 
dered if  Walter  might  be  dead,  and  leaned  his  head 
against  the  pony's  mane ;  it  turned  its  head  and  nickered 
softly  at  his  ear. 

The  war  party  stayed  in  the  ravine  until  it  grew  dark, 
and  Joe  watched  how  Winnedumah  swam  in  a  mist 
above  the  hills  long  after  the  sun  had  gone  quite  down, 
as  if  in  his  faithfulness  he  would  outwatch  the  dark; 
and  then  the  boy's  heart  was  lifted  up  to  the  great  chief 
standing  still  by  Tinnemaha.  "I  will  not  forget,"  he 
said.  "I,  too,  will  be  faithful."  Perhaps  at  this  mo- 
ment he  expected  a  miracle  to  help  him  in  his  vow,  as 
it  had  helped  Winnedumah. 

In  the  dusk  the  mounted  Indians  rode  down  by  the 
Creek  of  Tres  Pinos.  When  they  came  by  the  ruined 
hut  where  his  father  had  lived,  Joe's  heart  grew  hot 
again,  and  when  he  passed  the  arrow-maker's,  he  re- 
membered his  vow.  Suddenly  he  wheeled  his  pony  in 
the  trail,  hardly  knowing  what  he  would  do.  The  man 
next  to  him  laid  an  arrow  across  his  bow  and  pointed 
it  at  the  boy's  breast. 

"Coward,"  he  whispered,  but  an  older  Indian  laid 
his  hand  on  the  man's  arm. 

"  Save  your  arrows,"  he  said.  Then  the  ponies  swept 
forward  in  the  charge,  but  Joe  knew  in  an  instant  how  it 
would  be  with  him.  He  would  be  called  false  and  a  cow- 
ard, killed  for  it,  driven  from  the  tribe,  but  he  would  not 
fight  against  his  sworn  brother.   He  would  keep  his  vow. 

439 


MODERN  STORIES 

A  sudden  rain  of  arrows  flew  from  the  advancing 
Paiutes;  Joe  fumbled  his  and  dropped  it  on  the  ground. 
He  was  wondering  if  one  of  the  many  aimed  would 
find  his  brother.  Bullets  answered  the  arrow  flight.  He 
saw  the  braves  pitch  forward,  and  heard  the  scream  of 
wounded  ponies. 

He  hoped  he  would  be  shot;  he  would  not  have 
minded  that;  it  would  be  better  than  being  called  a 
coward.  And  then  it  occurred  to  him,  if  Walter  and 
his  father  came  out  and  found  him  when  the  fight  was 
done,  they  would  think  that  he  had  broken  his  word. 
The  Paiutes  began  to  seek  cover,  but  Joe  drove  out 
wildly  from  them,  and  rode  back  in  the  friendly  dark, 
and  past  the  ruined  campoodie,  to  the  black  rocks. 
There  he  crept  into  the  cave  which  only  he  and  Walter 
knew,  and  lay  on  his  face  and  cried ;  for  though  he  was 
an  Indian  he  was  only  a  boy,  and  he  had  seen  his  first 
fight.  He  was  sick  with  the  thought  of  his  vow.  He  lay 
in  the  black  rocks  all  the  night  and  the  day,  and  watched 
the  cattlemen  and  the  soldiers  ranging  all  that  country 
for  the  stragglers  of  his  people,  and  guessed  that  the 
Paiutes  had  made  the  last  stand.  Then  in  the  second 
night  he  began  to  work  back  by  secret  paths  to  the 
mountain  camp.  It  never  occurred  to  him  not  to  go. 
He  had  the  courage  to  meet  what  waited  for  him  there, 
but  he  had  not  the  heart  to  go  to  it  in  the  full  light  of 
day.  He  came  in  by  his  mother's  place,  and  she  spat 
upon  him,  for  she  had  heard  how  he  had  carried  him- 
self in  the  fight. 

"No  son  of  mine,"  said  she. 

He  went  by  the  women  and  children  and  heard  their 

440 


MAHALA  JOE 

jeers.  His  heart  was  very  sick.  He  went  apart  and  sat 
down  and  waited  what  the  men  would  say.  There  were 
few  of  them  left  about  the  dying  fire.  They  had  washed 
off  their  war  paint,  and  their  bows  were  broken.  When 
they  spoke  at  last,  it  was  with  mocking  and  sad  scorn. 

"We  have  enough  of  killing,"  said  the  one  called 
Scar-Face.  "Let  him  have  a  woman's  dress  and  stay 
to  mend  the  fire." 

So  it  was  done  in  the  presence  of  all  the  camp;  and 
because  he  was  a  boy,  and  because  he  was  an  Indian, 
he  said  nothing  of  his  vow,  nor  opened  his  mouth  in 
his  defense,  though  his  heart  quaked  and  his  knees 
shook.  He  had  the  courage  to  wear  the  badge  of  being 
afraid  all  his  life.  They  brought  him  a  woman's  dress, 
though  they  were  all  too  sad  for  much  laughter,  and  in 
the  morning  he  set  to  bringing  the  wood  for  the  fire. 

Afterward  there  was  a  treaty  made  between  the  Pai- 
utes  and  the  settlers,  and  the  remnant  went  back  to  the 
campoodie  of  Tres  Pinos,  and  Joe  learned  how  Walter 
had  been  sent  out  of  the  valley  in  the  beginning  of  the 
war,  but  that  did  not  make  any  difference  about  the 
woman's  dress.  He  and  Walter  never  met  again.  He 
continued  to  go  about  in  dresses,  though  in  time  he  was 
allowed  to  do  a  man's  work,  and  his  knowledge  of  Eng- 
lish helped  to  restore  a  friendly  footing  with  the  cattle- 
men. The  valley  filled  very  rapidly  with  settlers  after 
that,  and  under  the  slack  usage  of  the  tribe,  Mahala  Joe, 
as  he  came  to  be  known,  might  have  thrown  aside  his 
woman's  gear  without  offense,  but  he  had  the  courage  to 
wear  it  to  his  life's  end.  He  kept  his  sentence  as  he  kept 
his  vow,  and  yet  it  is  certain  that  Walter  never  knew. 

441 


THE   BESIEGED   CASTLE 

By  Sir  Walter  Scott 

ITIOLLOWING  with  wonderful  promptitude  the 
directions  of  Ivanhoe,  and  availing  herself  of  the 
protection  of  the  large  ancient  shield,  which  she  placed 
against  the  lower  part  of  the  window,  Rebecca,  with 
tolerable  security  to  herself,  could  witness  part  of  what 
was  passing  without  the  castle,  and  report  to  Ivanhoe  the 
preparations  which  the  assailants  were  making  for  the 
storm.  Indeed,  the  situation  which  she  thus  obtained 
was  peculiarly  favorable  for  this  purpose,  because,  be- 
ing placed  on  an  angle  of  the  main  building,  Rebecca 
could  not  only  see  what  passed  beyond  the  precincts  of 
the  castle,  but  also  commanded  a  view  of  the  outwork 
likely  to  be  the  first  object  of  the  meditated  assault. 
It  was  an  exterior  fortification  of  no  great  height  or 
strength,  intended  to  protect  the  postern  gate,  through 
which  Cedric  had  been  recently  dismissed  by  Front- 
de-Bceuf .  The  castle  moat  divided  this  species  of  bar- 
bican from  the  rest  of  the  fortress,  so  that  in  case  of  its 
being  taken,  it  was  easy  to  cut  off  the  communication 
with  the  main  building,  by  withdrawing  the  temporary 
bridge.  In  the  outwork  was  a  sally  port  corresponding 
to  the  postern  of  the  castle,  and  the  whole  was  sur- 
rounded by  a  strong  palisade.  Rebecca  could  observe, 
from  the  number  of  men  placed  for  the  defense  of  this 
post,  that  the  besieged  entertained  apprehensions  for 

442 


THE  BESIEGED  CASTLE 

its  safety;  and  from  the  mustering  of  the  assailants  in 
a  direction  nearly  opposite  to  the  outwork,  it  seemed 
no  less  plain  that  it  had  been  selected  as  a  vulnerable 
point  of  attack. 

These  appearances  she  hastily  communicated  to  Ivan- 
hoe,  and  added,  "  The  skirts  of  the  wood  seem  lined  with 
archers,  although  only  a  few  are  advanced  from  its  dark 
shadow." 

"  Under  what  banner  ?  "  asked  Ivanhoe. 

"  Under  no  ensign  of  war  which  I  can  observe,"  an- 
swered Rebecca. 

"A  singular  novelty,"  muttered  the  knight,  "to  ad- 
vance to  storm  such  a  castle  without  pennon  or  banner 
displayed !  Seest  thou  who  they  be  that  act  as  leaders  ?  " 

"  A  knight,  clad  in  sable  armor,  is  the  most  conspicu- 
ous," said  the  Jewess;  "he  alone  is  armed  from  head 
to  heel,  and  seems  to  assume  the  direction  of  all  around 
him." 

"  What  device  does  he  bear  on  his  shield  ?  "  replied 
Ivanhoe. 

"  Something  resembling  a  bar  of  iron,  and  a  padlock 
painted  blue  on  the  black  shield!" 

"A  fetterlock  and  shacklebolt  azure,"  said  Ivanhoe; 
"  I  know  not  who  may  bear  the  device,  but  well  I  ween 
it  might  now  be  mine  own.  Canst  thou  not  see  the 
motto  ?  " 

"Scarce  the  device  itself  at  this  distance,"  replied 
Rebecca;  "but  when  the  sun  glances  fair  upon  his 
shield,  it  shows  as  I  tell  you." 

"  Seem  there  no  other  leaders  ? "  exclaimed  the 
anxious  inquirer. 

443 


MODERN  STORIES 

"  None  of  mark  and  distinction  that  I  can  behold  from 
this  station,"  said  Rebecca;  "but,  doubtless,  the  other 
side  of  the  castle  is  also  assailed.  They  appear  even  now 
preparing  to  advance.  God  of  Zion  protect  us !  What 
a  dreadful  sight!  Those  who  advance  first  bear  huge 
shields,  arid  defenses  made  of  plank;  the  others  follow, 
bending  their  bows  as  they  come  on.  They  raise  their 
bows!  God  of  Moses,  forgive  the  creatures  thou  hast 
made ! " 

Her  description  was  here  suddenly  interrupted  by  the 
signal  for  assault,  which  was  given  by  the  blast  of  a  shrill 
bugle,  and  at  once  answered  by  a  flourish  of  the  Nor- 
man trumpets  from  the  battlements,  which,  mingled 
with  the  deep  and  hollow  clang  of  the  nakers  (a  species 
of  kettledrum),  retorted  in  notes  of  defiance  the  chal- 
lenge of  the  enemy.  The  shouts  of  both  parties  aug- 
mented the  fearful  din,  the  assailants  crying,  "Saint 
George  for  merry  England ! "  and  the  Normans  answer- 
ing them  with  cries  of  "En  avant  De  Bracyl  Beau- 
seant!  Beau-seant!  Front-de-Boeuf  a  la  rescoussel" 
according  to  the  war-cries  of  their  different  commanders. 

It  was  not,  however,  by  clamor  that  the  contest  was 
to  be  decided,  and  the  desperate  efforts  of  the  assaiiants 
were  met  by  an  equally  vigorous  defense  on  the  part 
of  the  besieged.  The  archers,  trained  by  their  wood- 
land pastimes  to  the  most  effective  use  of  the  long- 
bow, shot,  to  use  the  appropriate  phrase  of  the  time,  so 
"wholly  together,"  that  no  point  at  which  a  defender 
could  show  the  least  part  of  his  person  escaped  their 
cloth-yard  shafts.  By  this  heavy  discharge,  which  con- 
tinued as  thick  and  sharp  as  hail,  while,  notwithstand- 

444 


THE  BESIEGED   CASTLE 

ing,  every  arrow  had  its  individual  aim,  and  flew  by 
scores  together  against  each  embrasure  and  opening 
in  the  parapets,  as  well  as  at  every  window  where  a 
defender  either  occasionally  had  post,  or  might  be  sus* 
pected  to  be  stationed,  —  by  this  sustained  discharge, 
two  or  three  of  the  garrison  were  slain,  and  several 
others  wounded.  But,  confident  in  their  armor  of  proof, 
and  in  the  cover  which  their  situation  afforded,  the 
followers  of  Front-de-Bceuf,  and  his  allies,  showed  an 
obstinacy  in  defense  proportioned  to  the  fury  of  the 
attack,  and  replied  with  the  discharge  of  their  large 
cross-bows,  as  well  as  with  their  long-bows,  slings, 
and  other  missile  weapons,  to  the  close  and  continued 
shower  of  arrows;  and,  as  the  assailants  were  ne- 
cessarily but  indifferently  protected,  did  consider- 
ably more  damage  than  they  received  at  their  hand. 
The  whizzing  of  shafts  and  of  missiles,  on  both 
sides,  was  only  interrupted  by  the  shouts  which  arose 
when  either  side  inflicted  or  sustained  some  notable 
loss. 

"And  I  must  lie  here  like  a  bedridden  monk,"  ex- 
claimed Ivanhoe,  "while  the  game  that  gives  me  free- 
dom or  death  is  played  out  by  the  hand  of  others !  Look 
from  the  window  once  again,  kind  maiden,  but  beware 
that  you  are  not  marked  by  the  archers  beneath  —  look 
out  once  more,  and  tell  me  if  they  yet  advance  to  the 
storm." 

With  patient  courage,  strengthened  by  the  interval 
which  she  had  employed  in  mental  devotion,  Rebecca 
again  took  post  at  the  lattice,  sheltering  herself,  how- 
ever, so  as  not  to  be  visible  from  beneath. 

445 


MODERN  STORIES 

"What  dost  thou  see,  Rebecca?"  again  demanded 
the  wounded  knight. 

"Nothing  but  the  cloud  of  arrows  flying  so  thick  as 
to  dazzle  mine  eyes,  and  to  hide  the  bowmen  who  shoot 
them." 

"That  cannot  endure,"  said  Ivanhoe;  "if  they  press 
not  right  on  to  carry  the  castle  by  pure  force  of  arms, 
the  archery  may  avail  but  little  against  stone  walls  and 
bulwarks.  Look  for  the  Knight  of  the  Fetterlock,  fair 
Rebecca,  and  see  how  he  bears  himself;  for  as  the 
leader  is,  so  will  his  followers  be." 

"  I  see  him  not,"  said  Rebecca. 

"  Foul  craven ! "  exclaimed  Ivanhoe ;  "  does  he  blench 
from  the  helm  when  the  wind  blows  highest  ? " 

"He  blenches  not!  he  blenches  not!"  said  Rebecca. 
"  I  see  him  now ;  he  heads  a  body  of  men  close  under  the 
outer  barrier  of  the  barbican.  They  pull  down  the  piles 
and  palisades;  they  hew  down  the  barriers  with  axes. 
His  high  black  plume  floats  abroad  over  the  throng, 
like  a  raven  over  the  field  of  the  slain.  They  have  made 
a  breach  in  the  barriers  —  they  rush  in  —  they  are 
thrust  back!  Front-de-Bceuf  heads  the  defenders;  I 
see  his  gigantic  form  above  the  press.  They  throng  again 
to  the  breach,  and  the  pass  is  disputed  hand  to  hand, 
and  man  to  man.  God  of  Jacob!  it  is  the  meeting  of 
two  fierce  tides  —  the  conflict  of  two  oceans  moved  by 
adverse  winds!" 

She  turned  her  head  from  the  lattice,  as  if  unable 
longer  to  endure  a  sight  so  terrible. 

"Look  forth  again,  Rebecca,"  said  Ivanhoe,  mis- 
taking the  cause  of  her  retiring;  "the  archery  must  in 

446 


THE  BESIEGED   CASTLE 

some  degree  have  ceased,  since  they  are  now  fighting 
hand  to  hand.    Look  again,  there  is  now  less  danger." 

Rebecca  again  looked  forth,  and  almost  immediately 
exclaimed,  "Holy  prophets  of  the  law!  Front-de-Bceuf 
and  the  Black  Knight  fight  hand  to  hand  on  the  breach, 
amid  the  roar  of  their  followers,  who  watch  the  progress 
of  the  strife.  Heaven  strike  with  the  cause  of  the  op- 
pressed and  of  the  captive!"  She  then  uttered  a  loud 
shriek,  and  exclaimed,  "He  is  down!  he  is  down!" 

"  Who  is  down  ? "  cried  Ivanhoe ;  "  for  our  dear 
Lady's  sake,  tell  me  which  has  fallen  ? " 

"The  Black  Knight,"  answered  Rebecca  faintly; 
then  instantly  again  shouted  with  joyful  eagerness, 
"  But  no  —  but  no !  —  the  name  of  the  Lord  of  Hosts 
be  blessed !  —  he  is  on  foot  again,  and  fights  as  rf  there 
were  twenty  men's  strength  in  his  single  arm.  His  sword 
is  broken  —  he  snatches  an  axe  from  a  yeoman  —  he 
presses  Front-de-Bceuf  with  blow  on  blow.  The  giant 
stoops  and  totters  like  an  oak  under  the  steel  of  a  wood- 
man —  he  falls  —  he  falls ! " 

"  Front-de-Bceuf  ? "  exclaimed  Ivanhoe. 

" Front-de-Bceuf ! "  answered  the  Jewess;  "his  men 
rush  to  the  rescue,  headed  by  the  haughty  Templar  — 
their  united  force  compels  the  champion  to  pause  — 
they  drag  Front-de-Bceuf  within  the  walls." 

"The  assailants  have  won  the  barriers,  have  thev 
not  ?  "  said  Ivanhoe. 

"  They  have —  they  have ! "  exclaimed  Rebecca,  "  and 
they  press  the  besieged  hard  upon  the  outer  wall ;  some 
plant  ladders,  some  swarm  like  bees,  and  endeavor  to 
ascend  upon  the  shoulder  of  each  other.  Down  go  stones, 

447 


MODERN  STORIES 

beams,  and  trunks  of  trees  upon  their  heads,  and  as 
fast  as  they  bear  the  wounded  to  the  rear,  fresh  men 
supply  their  places  in  the  assault.  Great  God !  hast  thou 
given  men  thine  own  image,  that  it  should  be  thus 
cruelly  defaced  by  the  hands  of  their  brethren!" 

"Think  not  of  that,"  said  Ivanhoe;  "this  is  no  time 
for  such  thoughts.  Who  yield  ?  —  who  push  their  way  ? " 

"The  ladders  are  thrown  down,"  replied  Rebecca, 
shuddering;  "the  soldiers  lie  groveling  under  them 
like  crushed  reptiles  —  the  besieged  have  the  better." 

"Saint  George  strike  for  us!"  exclaimed  the  knight; 
"  do  the  false  yeomen  give  way  ? " 

"No!"  exclaimed  Rebecca,  "they  bear  themselves 
right  yeomanly  —  the  Black  Knight  approaches  the 
postern  with  his  huge  axe  —  the  thundering  blows 
which  he  deals,  you  may  hear  them  above  all  the  din 
and  shouts  of  the  battle  —  stones  and  beams  are  hailed 
down  on  the  bold  champion  —  he  regards  them  no 
more  than  if  they  were  thistledown  or  feathers!" 

"  By  Saint  John  of  Acre,"  said  Ivanhoe,  raising  him- 
self joyfully  on  his  couch,  "methought  there  was  but 
one  man  in  England  that  might  do  such  a  deed!" 

"The  postern  gate  shakes,"  continued  Rebecca;  "it 
crashes  —  it  is  splintered  by  his  blows  —  they  rush  in 
—  the  outwork  is  won  —  Oh,  God !  —  they  hurl  the 
defenders  from  the  battlements  —  they  throw  them  into 
the  moat  —  Oh,  men,  if  ye  be  indeed  men,  spare  them 
that  can  resist  no  longer!" 

"  The  bridge  —  the  bridge  which  communicates 
with  the  castle  —  have  they  won  that  pass  ?  "  exclaimed 
Ivanhoe. 

448 


THE  BESIEGED  CASTLE 

"  No,"  replied  Rebecca,  "  the  Templar  has  destroyed 
the  plank  on  which  they  crossed  —  few  of  the  defend- 
ers escaped  with  him  into  the  castle  —  the  shrieks 
and  cries  which  you  hear  tell  the  fate  of  the  others  — 
Alas !  I  see  it  is  still  more  difficult  to  look  upon  victory 
than  upon  battle." 

"  What  do  they  now,  maiden  ? "  said  Ivanhoe ;  "  look 
forth  yet  again  —  this  is  no  time  to  faint  at  bloodshed." 

"It  is  over  for  the  time,"  answered  Rebecca;  "our 
friends  strengthen  themselves  within  the  outwork  which 
they  have  mastered ;  and  it  affords  them  so  good  a  shel- 
ter from  the  f oeman's  shot,  that  the  garrison  only  be- 
stow a  few  bolts  on  it  from  interval  to  interval,  as  if 
rather  to  disquiet  than  effectually  to  injure  them." 


THE  MAN  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY 

By  Edward  Everett  Hale 

I  SUPPOSE  that  very  few  casual  readers  of  the  New 
York  "Herald"  of  August  13th  observed,  in  an 
obscure  corner,  among  the  "Deaths,"  the  announce- 
ment, — 

"Nolan.  Died,  on  board  U.  S.  Corvette  Levant, 
Lat.  2°  11'  S.,  Long.  131°  W.,  on  the  11th  of  May, 
Philip  Nolan." 

I  happened  to  observe  it,  because  I  was  stranded 
at  the  old  Mission-House  in  Mackinaw,  waiting  for  a 
Lake  Superior  steamer  which  did  not  choose  to  come, 
and  I  was  devouring  to  the  very  stubble  all  the  current 
literature  I  could  get  hold  of,  even  down  to  the  deaths 
and  marriages  in  the  "Herald."  My  memory  for  names 
and  people  is  good,  and  the  reader  will  see,  as  he  goes 
on,  that  I  had  reason  enough  to  remember  Philip  Nolan. 
There  are  hundreds  of  readers  who  would  have  paused 
at  that  announcement,  if  the  officer  of  the  Levant  who 
reported  it  had  chosen  to  make  it  thus :  — "  Died, 
May  11th,  The  Man  without  a  Country."  For 
it  was  as  "The  Man  without  a  Country"  that  poor 
Philip  Nolan  had  generally  been  known  by  the  officers 
who  had  him  in  charge  during  some  fifty  years,  as, 
indeed,  by  all  the  men  who  sailed  under  them.  I  dare 
say  there  is  many  a  man  who  has  taken  wine  with  him 

450 


THE  MAN  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY 

once  a  fortnight,  in  a  three  years'  cruise,  who  never 
knew  that  his  name  was  "  Nolan,"  or  whether  the  poor 
wretch  had  any  name  at  all. 

There  can  now  be  no  possible  harm  in  telling  this 
poor  creature's  story.  Reason  enough  there  has  been 
till  now,  ever  since  Madison's  administration  went  out 
in  1817,  for  very  strict  secrecy,  the  secrecy  of  honor 
itself,  among  the  gentlemen  of  the  navy  who  have  had 
Nolan  in  successive  charge.  And  certainly  it  speaks 
well  for  the  esprit  de  corps  of  the  profession  and  the 
personal  honor  of  its  members,  that  to  the  press  this 
man's  story  has  been  wholly  unknown,  —  and,  I  think, 
to  the  country  at  large  also.  I  have  reason  to  think, 
from  some  investigations  I  made  in  the  Naval  Ar- 
chives when  I  was  attached  to  the  Bureau  of  Construc- 
tion, that  every  official  report  relating  to  him  was 
burned  when  Ross  burned  the  public  buildings  at 
Washington.  One  of  the  Tuckers,  or  possibly  one  of 
the  Watsons,  had  Nolan  in  charge  at  the  end  of  the 
war;  and  when,  on  returning  from  his  cruise,  he  re- 
ported at  Washington  to  one  of  the  Crowninshields, 
—  who  was  in  the  Navy  Department  when  he  came 
home,  —  he  found  that  the  Department  ignored  the 
whole  business.  Whether  they  really  knew  nothing 
about  it,  or  whether  it  was  a  "  Non  mi  ricordo,"  deter- 
mined on  as  a  piece  of  policy,  I  do  not  know.  But  this  I 
do  know,  that  since  1817,  and  possibly  before,  no  naval 
officer  has  mentioned  Nolan  in  his  report  of  a  cruise. 

But,  as  I  say,  there  is  no  need  for  secrecy  any  longer. 
And  now  the  poor  creature  is  dead,  it  seems  to  me  worth 
while  to  tell  a  little  of  his  story,  by  way  of  showing  young 

451 


MODERN  STORIES 

Americans  of  to-day  what  it  is  to  be  a  man  without 
a  country. 

Philip  Nolan  was  as  fine  a  young  officer  as  there  was 
in  the  "  Legion  of  the  West,"  as  the  Western  division  of 
our  army  was  then  called.  When  Aaron  Burr  made  his 
first  dashing  expedition  down  to  New  Orleans  in  1805, 
at  Fort  Massac,  or  somewhere  above  on  the  river,  he 
met,  as  the  Devil  would  have  it,  this  gay,  dashing,  bright 
young  fellow,  at  some  dinner-party,  I  think.  Burr 
marked  him,  talked  to  him,  walked  with  him,  took  him 
a  day  or  two's  voyage  in  his  flat-boat,  and,  in  short,  fasci- 
nated him.  For  the  next  year  barrack-life  was  very  tame 
to  poor  Nolan.  He  occasionally  availed  himself  of  the 
permission  the  great  man  had  given  him  to  write  to  him. 
Long,  high- worded,  stilted  letters  the  poor  boy  wrote  and 
rewrote  and  copied.  But  never  a  line  did  he  have  in  reply 
from  the  gay  deceiver.  The  other  boys  in  the  garrison 
sneered  at  him,  because  he  sacrificed  in  this  unrequited 
affection  for  a  politician  the  time  which  they  devoted 
to  Monongahela,  sledge,  and  high-low-jack.  Bourbon, 
euchre,  and  poker  were  still  unknown.  But  one  day 
Nolan  had  his  revenge.  This  time  Burr  came  down 
the  river,  not  as  an  attorney  seeking  a  place  for  his  of- 
fice, but  as  a  disguised  conqueror.  He  had  defeated  I 
know  not  how  many  district  attorneys;  he  had  dined 
at  I  know  not  how  many  public  dinners;  he  had  been 
heralded  in  I  know  not  how  many  Weekly  Arguses, 
and  it  was  rumored  that  he  had  an  army  behind  him 
and  an  empire  before  him.  It  was  a  great  day  —  his 
arrival  —  to  poor  Nolan.  Burr  had  not  been  at  the  fort 
an  hour  before  he  sent  for  him.   That  evening  he  asked 

452 


THE   MAN  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY 

Nolan  to  take  him  out  in  his  skiff,  to  show  him  a  cane- 
brake  or  a  cottonwood  tree,  as  he  said,  —  really  to  se- 
duce him ;  and  by  the  time  the  sail  was  over  Nolan  was 
enlisted  body  and  soul.  From  that  time,  though  he  did 
not  yet  know  it,  he  lived  as  a  man  without  a  country. 

What  Burr  meant  to  do  I  know  no  more  than  you, 
dear  reader.  It  is  none  of  our  business  just  now.  Only, 
when  the  grand  catastrophe  came,  and  Jefferson  and 
the  House  of  Virginia  of  that  day  undertook  to  break  on 
the  wheel  all  the  possible  Clarences  of  the  then  House 
of  York,  by  the  great  treason-trial  at  Richmond,  some  of 
the  lesser  fry  in  that  distant  Mississippi  Valley,  which 
was  farther  from  us  than  Puget  Sound  is  to-day,  in- 
troduced the  like  novelty  on  their  provincial  stage,  and, 
to  while  away  the  monotony  of  the  summer  at  Fort 
Adams,  got  up,  for  spectacles,  a  string  of  courts-martial 
on  the  officers  there.  One  and  another  of  the  colonels 
and  majors  were  tried,  and,  to  fill  out  the  list,  little  No- 
lan, against  whom,  Heaven  knows,  there  was  evidence 
enough,  —  that  he  was  sick  of  the  service,  had  been 
willing  to  be  false  to  it,  and  would  have  obeyed  any 
order  to  march  any-whither  with  any  one  who  would 
follow  him,  had  the  order  only  been  signed,  "  By  com- 
mand of  His  Exc.  A.  Burr."  The  courts  dragged  on. 
The  big  flies  escaped,  —  rightly,  for  all  I  know.  Nolan 
was  proved  guilty  enough,  as  I  say;  yet  you  and  I  would 
never  have  heard  of  him,  reader,  but  that,  when  the 
president  of  the  court  asked  him  at  the  close  whether 
he  wished  to  say  anything  to  show  that  he  had  always 
been  faithful  to  the  United  States,  he  cried  out,  in  a  fit 
of  frenzy,  — 

453 


MODERN  STORIES 

"  D n  the  United  States !  I  wish  I  may  never  hear 

«)f  the  United  States  again ! " 

I  suppose  he  did  not  know  how  the  words  shocked 
old  Colonel  Morgan,  who  was  holding  the  court.  Half 
the  officers  who  sat  in  it  had  served  through  the  Revo- 
lution, and  their  lives,  not  to  say  their  necks  had  been 
risked  for  the  very  idea  which  he  so  cavalierly  cursed 
in  his  madness.  He,  on  his  part,  had  grown  up  in  the 
West  of  those  days,  in  the  midst  of  "Spanish  plot," 
"  Orleans  plot,"  and  all  the  rest.  He  had  been  educated 
on  a  plantation  where  the  finest  company  was  a  Span- 
ish officer  or  a  French  merchant  from  Orleans.  His 
education,  such  as  it  was,  had  been  perfected  in  com- 
mercial expeditions  to  Vera  Cruz,  and  I  think  he  told 
me  his  father  once  hired  an  Englishman  to  be  a  pri- 
vate tutor  for  a  winter  on  the  plantation.  He  had  spent 
half  his  youth  with  an  older  brother,  hunting  horses  in 
Texas;  and,  in  a  word,  to  him  "United  States"  was 
scarcely  a  reality.  Yet  he  had  been  fed  by  "United 
States  "  for  all  the  years  since  he  had  been  in  the  army. 
He  had  sworn  on  his  faith  as  a  Christian  to  be  true  to 
"United  States."  It  was  "United  States"  which  gave 
him  the  uniform  he  wore,  and  the  sword  by  his  side. 
Nay,  my  poor  Nolan,  it  was  only  because  "United 
States  "  had  picked  you  out  first  as  one  of  her  own  con- 
fidential men  of  honor,  that  "  A.  Burr  "  cared  for  you  a 
straw  more  than  for  the  flat-boat  men  who  sailed  his 
ark  for  him.  I  do  not  excuse  Nolan;  I  only  explain  to 
the  reader  why  he  damned  his  country,  and  wished  he 
might  never  hear  her  name  again. 

He  never  did  hear  her  name  but  once  again.    From 

454 


THE   MAN  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY 

that  moment,  September  23,  1807,  till  the  day  he  died. 
May  11,  1863,  he  never  heard  her  name  again.  For  that 
half -century  and  more  he  was  a  man  without  a  country. 

Old  Morgan,  as  I  said,  was  terribly  shocked.  If 
Nolan  had  compared  George  Washington  to  Benedict 
Arnold,  or  had  cried,  "  God  save  King  George,"  Mor- 
gan would  not  have  felt  worse.  He  called  the  court  into 
his  private  room,  and  returned  in  fifteen  minutes,  with 
a  face  like  a  sheet,  to  say,  — 

"  Prisoner,  hear  the  sentence  of  the  court !  The  court 
decides,  subject  to  the  approval  of  the  President,  that 
you  never  hear  the  name  of  the  United  States  again." 
Nolan  laughed.  But  nobody  else  laughed.  Old  Mor- 
gan was  too  solemn,  and  the  whole  room  was  hushed 
dead  as  night  for  a  minute.  Even  Nolan  lost  his  swag- 
ger in  a  moment.    Then  Morgan  added,  — 

"Mr.  Marshal,  take  the  prisoner  to  Orleans  in  an 
armed  boat,  and  deliver  him  to  the  naval  commander 
there." 

The  Marshal  gave  his  orders  and  the  prisoner  was 
taken  out  of  court. 

"  Mr.  Marshal,"  continued  old  Morgan,  "  see  that  no 
one  mentions  the  United  States  to  the  prisoner.  Mr. 
Marshal,  make  my  respects  to  Lieutenant  Mitchell  at 
Orleans,  and  request  him  to  order  that  no  one  shall 
mention  the  United  States  to  the  prisoner  while  he  is  on 
board  ship.  You  will  receive  your  written  orders  from 
the  officer  on  duty  here  this  evening.  The  court  is  ad- 
journed without  day." 

I  have  always  supposed  that  Colonel  Morgan  himself 
took  the  proceedings  of  the  court  to  Washington  city, 

455 


MODERN  STORIES 

and  explained  them  to  Mr.  Jefferson.  Certain  it  is  that 
the  President  approved  them,  —  certain,  that  is,  if  I 
may  believe  the  men  who  say  they  have  seen  his  signa- 
ture. Before  the  Nautilus  got  round  from  New  Orleans 
to  the  Northern  Atlantic  coast  with  the  prisoner  on 
board,  the  sentence  had  been  approved,  and  he  was  a 
man  without  a  country. 

The  plan  then  adopted  was  substantially  the  same 
which  was  necessarily  followed  ever  after.  Perhaps  it 
was  suggested  by  the  necessity  of  sending  him  by  wa- 
ter from  Fort  Adams  and  Orleans.  The  Secretary  of 
the  Navy  —  it  must  have  been  the  first  Crowninshield, 
though  he  is  a  man  I  do  not  remember  —  was  requested 
to  put  Nolan  on  board  a  government  vessel  bound  on 
a  long  cruise,  and  to  direct  that  he  should  be  only  so  far 
confined  there  as  to  make  it  certain  that  he  never  saw 
or  heard  of  the  country.  We  had  few  long  cruises  then, 
and  the  navy  was  very  much  out  of  favor;  and  as  al- 
most all  of  this  story  is  traditional,  as  I  have  explained, 
I  do  not  know  certainly  what  his  first  cruise  was.  But 
the  commander  to  whom  he  was  intrusted,  —  perhaps 
it  was  Tingey  or  Shaw,  though  I  think  it  was  one  of 
the  younger  men,  —  we  are  all  old  enough  now,  — 
regulated  the  etiquette  and  the  precautions  of  the  affair, 
and  according  to  his  scheme  they  were  carried  out,  I 
suppose,  till  Nolan  died. 

When  I  was  second  officer  of  the  Intrepid  —  some 
thirty  years  after  —  I  saw  the  original  paper  of  in- 
structions. I  have  been  sorry  ever  since  that  I  did  not 
copy  the  whole  of  it.  It  ran,  however,  much  in  this 
way:  — 

456 


THE  MAN  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY 

Washington  [with  the  date,  which 
must  have  been  late  in  1807]. 

Sir,  —  You  will  receive  from  Lieutenant  Neale  the 
person  of  Philip  Nolan,  late  a  Lieutenant  in  the  United 
States  Army. 

This  person  on  his  trial  by  court-martial  expressed 
with  an  oath  the  wish  that  he  might  '  never  hear  of  the 
United  States  again.' 

The  Court  sentenced  him  to  have  his  wish  fulfilled. 

For  the  present,  the  execution  of  the  order  is  in- 
trusted by  the  President  to  this  department. 

You  will  take  the  prisoner  on  board  your  ship,  and 
keep  him  there  with  such  precautions  as  shall  prevent 
his  escape. 

You  will  provide  him  with  such  quarters,  rations, 
and  clothing  as  would  be  proper  for  an  officer  of  his 
late  rank,  if  he  were  a  passenger  on  your  vessel  on  the 
business  of  his  government. 

The  gentlemen  on  board  will  make  any  arrange- 
ments agreeable  to  themselves  regarding  his  society. 
He  is  to  be  exposed  to  no  indignity  of  any  kind,  nor 
is  he  ever  unnecessarily  to  be  reminded  that  he  is  a 
prisoner. 

But  under  no  circumstance  is  he  ever  to  hear  of  his 
country  or  to  see  any  information  regarding  it;  and 
you  will  specially  caution  all  the  officers  under  your 
command  to  take  care,  that  in  the  various  indulgences 
which  may  be  granted,  this  rule,  in  which  his  punish- 
ment is  involved,  shall  not  be  broken. 

It  is  the  intention  of  the  government  that  he  shall 
never  again  see  the  country  which  he  has  disowned. 

457 


MODERN  STORIES 

Before  the  end  of  your  cruise  you  will  receive  orders 
which  will  give  effect  to  this  intention. 

Respectfully  yours, 

W.  Southard, 

for  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy. 

If  I  had  only  preserved  the  whole  of  this  paper,  there 
would  be  no  break  in  the  beginning  of  my  sketch  of  this 
story.  For  Captain  Shaw,  if  it  was  he,  handed  it  to  his 
successor  in  the  charge,  and  he  to  his,  and  I  suppose 
the  commander  of  the  Levant  has  it  to-day  as  his  au- 
thority for  keeping  this  man  in  this  mild  custody. 

The  rule  adopted  on  board  the  ships  on  which  I  have 
met  "the  man  without  a  country"  was,  I  think,  trans- 
mitted from  the  beginning.  No  mess  liked  to  have  him 
permanently,  because  his  presence  cut  off  all  talk  of 
home  or  of  the  prospect  of  return,  of  politics  or  letters, 
of  peace  or  of  war,  —  cut  off  more  than  half  the  talk 
men  like  to  have  at  sea.  But  it  was  always  thought 
too  hard  that  he  should  never  meet  the  rest  of  us, 
except  to  touch  hats,  and  we  finally  sank  into  one 
system.  He  was  not  permitted  to  talk  with  the  men, 
unless  an  officer  was  by.  With  officers  he  had  unre- 
strained intercourse,  as  far  as  they  and  he  chose.  But 
he  grew  shy,  though  he  had  favorites :  I  was  one.  Then 
the  captain  always  asked  him  to  dinner  on  Monday. 
Every  mess  in  succession  took  up  the  invitation  in  its 
turn.  According  to  the  size  of  the  ship,  you  had  him 
at  your  mess  more  or  less  often  at  dinner.  His  breakfast 
he  ate  in  his  own  stateroom,  —  he  always  had  a  state- 
room, —  which  was  where  a  sentinel  or  somebody  on 

458 


THE  MAN   WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY 

the  watch  could  see  the  door.  And  whatever  else  he 
ate  or  drank,  he  ate  or  drank  alone.  Sometimes,  when 
the  marines  or  sailors  had  any  special  jollification,  they 
were  permitted  to  invite  "  Plain  Buttons,"  as  they  called 
him.  Then  Nolan  was  sent  with  some  officer,  and  the 
men  were  forbidden  to  speak  of  home  while  he  was 
there.  I  believe  the  theory  was  that  the  sight  of  his 
punishment  did  them  good.  They  called  him  "Plain 
Buttons,"  because,  while  he  always  chose  to  wear  a 
regulation  army-uniform,  he  was  not  permitted  to  wear 
the  army  button,  for  the  reason  that  it  bore  either  the 
initials  or  the  insignia  of  the  country  he  had  disowned. 
I  remember,  soon  after  I  joined  the  navy,  I  was  on 
shore  with  some  of  the  older  officers  from  our  ship  and 
from  the  Brandywine,  which  we  had  met  at  Alexandria- 
We  had  leave  to  make  a  party  and  go  up  to  Cairo  and 
the  Pyramids.  As  we  jogged  along  (you  went  on  don- 
keys then),  some  of  the  gentlemen  (we  boys  called  them 
"Dons,"  but  the  phrase  was  long  since  changed)  fell 
to  talking  about  Nolan,  and  some  one  told  the  system 
which  was  adopted  from  the  first  about  his  books  and 
other  reading.  As  he  was  almost  never  permitted  to  go 
on  shore,  even  though  the  vessel  lay  in  port  for  months, 
his  time,  at  the  best,  hung  heavy;  and  everybody  was 
permitted  to  lend  him  books,  if  they  were  not  published 
in  America  and  made  no  allusion  to  it.  These  were 
common  enough  in  the  old  days,  when  people  in  the 
other  hemisphere  talked  of  the  United  States  as  little 
as  we  do  of  Paraguay.  He  had  almost  all  the  foreign 
papers  that  came  into  the  ship,  sooner  or  later;  only 
somebody  must  go  over  them  first,  and  cut  out  any  ad- 

459 


MODERN  STORIES 

vertisement  or  stray  paragraph  that  alluded  to  America. 
This  was  a  little  cruel  sometimes,  when  the  back  of 
what  was  cut  out  might  be  as  innocent  as  Hesiod.  Right 
in  the  midst  of  one  of  Napoleon's  battles,  or  one  of 
Canning's  speeches,  poor  Nolan  would  find  a  great 
hole,  because  on  the  back  of  the  page  of  that  paper  there 
had  been  an  advertisement  of  a  packet  for  New  York, 
or  a  scrap  from  the  President's  message.  I  say  this 
was  the  first  time  I  ever  heard  of  this  plan,  which  after- 
wards I  had  enough,  and  more  than  enough  to  do  with. 
I  remember  it  because  poor  Phillips,  who  was  of  the 
party,  as  soon  as  the  allusion  to  reading  was  made,  told 
a  story  of  something  which  happened  at  the  Cape  of 
Good  Hope  on  Nolan's  first  voyage;  and  it  is  the  only 
thing  I  ever  knew  of  that  voyage.  They  had  touched 
at  the  Cape,  and  had  done  the  civil  thing  with  the 
English  Admiral  and  the  fleet,  and  then,  leaving  for 
a  long  cruise  up  the  Indian  Ocean,  Phillips  had  bor- 
rowed a  lot  of  English  books  from  an  officer,  which 
in  those  days,  as  indeed  in  these,  was  quite  a  windfall. 
Among  them,  as  the  Devil  would  order,  was  the  "Lay 
of  the  Last  Minstrel,"  which  they  had  all  of  them  heard 
of,  but  which  most  of  them  had  never  seen.  I  think  it 
could  not  have  been  published  long.  Well,  nobody 
thought  there  could  be  any  risk  of  anything  national 
in  that,  though  Phillips  swore  old  Shaw  had  cut  out 
the  "  Tempest "  from  Shakespeare  before  he  let  Nolan 
have  it,  because  he  said  "the  Bermudas  ought  to  be 
ours,  and,  by  Jove,  should  be  one  day."  So  Nolan  was 
permitted  to  join  the  circle  one  afternoon  when  a  lot 
of  them  sat  on  deck  smoking  and  reading  aloud.    Peo- 

460 


THE  MAN  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY 

pie  do  not  do  such  things  so  often  now ;  but  when  I  was 
young  we  got  rid  of  a  great  deal  of  time  so.  Well,  so 
it  happened  that  in  his  turn  Nolan  took  the  book  and 
read  to  the  others;  and  he  read  very  well,  as  I  know. 
Nobody  in  the  circle  knew  a  line  of  the  poem,  only  it 
was  all  magic  and  Border  chivalry,  and  was  ten  thou- 
sand years  ago.  Poor  Nolan  read  steadily  through  the 
fifth  canto,  stopped  a  minute  and  drank  something, 
and  then  began,  without  a  thought  of  what  was  com- 
ing*— 

"Breathes  there  the  man,  with  soul  so  dead, 
Who  never  to  himself  hath  said"  — 

It  seems  impossible  to  us  that  anybody  ever  heard  this 
for  the  first  time;  but  all  these  fellows  did  then,  and 
poor  Nolan  himself  went  on,  still  unconsciously  or 
mechanically,  — 

"This  is  my  own,  my  native  land !" 

Then   they   all    saw  something  was  to   pay;   but    he 

expected  to  get  through,  I  suppose,  turned  a  little  pale, 

but  plunged  on,  — 

"Whose  heart  hath  ne'er  within  him  burned, 
As  home  his  footsteps  he  hath  turned 

From  wandering  on  a  foreign  strand  ?  — 
If  such  there  breathe,  go,  mark  him  well." 

By  this  time  the  men  were  all  beside  themselves,  wish- 
ing there  was  any  way  to  make  him  turn  over  two  pages ; 
but  he  had  not  quite  presence  of  mind  for  that;  he 
gagged  a  little,  colored  crimson,  and  staggered  on,  — 

"For  him  no  minstrel  raptures  swell; 
High  though  his  titles,  proud  his  name, 
Boundless  his  wealth  as  wish  can  claim,  — 
461 


MODERN  STORIES 

Despite  these  titles,  power,  and  pelf, 
The  wretch,  concentred  all  in  self"  — 

and  here  the  poor  fellow  choked,  could  not  go  on,  but 
started  up,  swung  the  book  into  the  sea,  vanished  into 
his  stateroom.  "And,  by  Jove,"  said  Phillips,  "we  did 
not  see  him  for  two  months  again.  And  I  had  to  make 
up  some  beggarly  story  to  that  English  surgeon  why  I 
did  not  return  his  Walter  Scott  to  him." 

That  story  shows  about  the  time  when  Nolan's  brag- 
gadocio must  have  broken  down.  At  first,  they  said,  he 
took  a  very  high  tone,  considered  his  imprisonment  a 
mere  farce,  affected  to  enjoy  the  voyage,  and  all  that ; 
but  Phillips  said  that  after  he  came  out  of  his  stateroom 
he  never  was  the  same  man  again.  He  never  read  aloud 
again,  unless  it  was  the  Bible  or  Shakespeare,  or  some- 
thing else  he  was  sure  of.  But  it  was  not  that  merely. 
He  never  entered  in  with  the  other  young  men  exactly 
as  a  companion  again.  He  was  always  shy  afterwards, 
when  I  knew  him,  —  very  seldom  spoke  unless  he  was 
spoken  to,  except  to  a  very  few  friends.  He  lighted  up 
occasionally,  —  I  remember  late  in  his  life  hearing  him 
fairly  eloquent  on  something  which  had  been  suggested 
to  him  by  one  of  Flechier's  sermons,  —  but  generally 
he  had  the  nervous,  tired  look  of  a  heart-wounded 
man. 

When  Captain  Shaw  was  coming  home,  —  if,  as  I 
say,  it  was  Shaw,  —  rather  to  the  surprise  of  everybody 
they  made  one  of  the  Windward  Islands,  and  lay  off 
and  on  for  nearly  a  week.  The  boys  said  the  officers 
were  sick  of  salt-junk,  and  meant  to  have  turtle-soup 
before  they  came  home.     But  after  several  days  the 

462 


THE  MAN  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY 

Warren  came  to  the  same  rendezvous;  they  exchanged 
signals ;  she  sent  to  Phillips  and  these  homeward-bound 
men,  letters  and  papers,  and  told  them  she  was  outward- 
bound,  perhaps  to  the  Mediterranean,  and  took  poor 
Nolan  and  his  traps  on  the  boat  back  to  try  his  second 
cruise.  He  looked  very  blank  when  he  was  told  to  get 
ready  to  join  her.  He  had  known  enough  of  the  signs 
of  the  sky  to  know  that  till  that  moment  he  was  going 
"  home."  But  this  was  a  distinct  evidence  of  something 
he  had  not  thought  of,  perhaps,  —  that  there  was  no 
going  home  for  him,  even  to  a  prison.  And  this  was  the 
first  of  some  twenty  such  transfers,  which  brought  him 
sooner  or  later  into  half  our  best  vessels,  but  which 
kept  him  all  his  life  at  least  some  hundred  miles 
from  the  country  he  had  hoped  he  might  never  hear  of 
again. 

It  may  have  been  on  that  second  cruise  —  it  was  once 
when  he  was  up  the  Mediterranean  —  that  Mrs.  Graff, 
the  celebrated  Southern  beauty  of  those  days,  danced 
with  him.  They  had  been  lying  a  long  time  in  the  Bay 
of  Naples,  and  the  officers  were  very  intimate  in  the  Eng- 
lish fleet,  and  there  had  been  great  festivities,  and  our 
men  thought  they  must  give  a  great  ball  on  board  the 
ship.  How  they  ever  did  it  on  board  the  Warren  I  am 
sure  I  do  not  know.  Perhaps  it  was  not  the  Warren,  or 
perhaps  ladies  did  not  take  up  so  much  room  as  they 
do  now.  They  wanted  to  use  Nolan's  stateroom  for 
something,  and  they  hated  to  do  it  without  asking  him 
to  the  ball;  so  the  captain  said  they  might  ask  him,  if 
they  would  be  responsible  that  he  did  not  talk  with  the 
wrong  people,  "who  would  give  him  intelligence."    So 

463 


MODERN  STORIES 

the  dance  went  on,  the  finest  party  that  had  ever  been 
known,  I  dare  say;  for  I  never  heard  of  a  man-of-war 
ball  that  was  not.  For  ladies  they  had  the  family  of  the 
American  consul,  one  or  two  travelers  who  had  adven- 
tured so  far,  and  a  nice  bevy  of  English  girls  and  ma- 
trons, perhaps  Lady  Hamilton  herself. 

Well,  different  officers  relieved  each  other  in  standing 
and  talking  with  Nolan  in  a  friendly  way,  so  as  to  be 
sure  that  nobody  else  spoke  to  him.  The  dancing  went 
on  with  spirit,  and  after  a  while  even  the  fellows  who 
took  this  honorary  guard  of  Nolan  ceased  to  fear  any 
contretemps.  Only  when  some  English  lady  —  Lady 
Hamilton,  as  I  said,  perhaps  —  called  for  a  set  of 
"American  dances,"  an  odd  thing  happened.  Every- 
body then  danced  contra-dances.  The  black  band, 
nothing  loath,  conferred  as  to  what  "  American  dances  " 
were,  and  started  off  with  "Virginia  Reel,"  which  they 
followed  with  "Money  Musk,"  which  in  its  turn  in 
those  days  should  have  been  followed  by  "The  Old 
Thirteen."  But  just  as  Dick,  the  leader,  tapped  for 
his  fiddles  to  begin,  and  bent  forward,  about  to  say  in 
true  negro  state,  "'The  Old  Thirteen,'  gentlemen  and 
ladies ! "  as  he  had  said  " '  Virginny  Reel,'  if  you  please ! " 
and  "  *  Money  Musk,'  if  you  please ! "  the  captain's  boy 
tapped  him  on  the  shoulder,  whispered  to  him,  and  he 
did  not  announce  the  name  of  the  dance;  he  merely 
bowed,  began  on  the  air,  and  they  all  fell  to,  —  the 
officers  teaching  the  English  girls  the  figure,  but  not 
telling  them  why  it  had  no  name. 

But  that  is  not  the  story  I  started  to  tell.  As  the 
dancing  went  on,  Nolan  and  our  fellows  all  got  at 

464 


THE  MAN  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY 

ease,  as  I  said,  —  so  much  so,  that  it  seemed  quite 
natural  for  him  to  bow  to  that  splendid  Mrs.  Graff, 
and  say,  — 

"I  hope  you  have  not  forgotten  me,  Miss  Rutledge. 
Shall  I  have  the  honor  of  dancing?" 

He  did  it  so  quickly  that  Fellows,  who  was  by  him, 
could  not  hinder  him.    She  laughed,  and  said,  — 

"I  am  not  Miss  Rutledge  any  longer,  Mr.  Nolan; 
but  I  will  dance  all  the  same,"  just  nodded  to  Fellows, 
as  if  to  say  he  must  leave  Mr.  Nolan  to  her,  and  led  him 
off  to  the  place  where  the  dance  was  forming. 

Nolan  thought  he  had  got  his  chance.  He  had  known 
her  at  Philadelphia,  and  at  other  places  had  met  her, 
and  this  was  a  Godsend.  You  could  not  talk  in  contra- 
dances,  as  you  do  in  cotillons,  or  even  in  the  pauses 
of  waltzing;  but  there  were  chances  for  tongues  and 
sounds,  as  well  as  for  eyes  and  blushes.  He  began  with 
her  travels,  and  Europe,  and  Vesuvius,  and  the  French; 
and  then,  when  they  had  worked  down,  and  had  that 
long  talking-time  at  the  bottom  of  the  set,  he  said  boldly, 
—  a  little  pale,  she  said,  as  she  told  me  the  story,  years 
after,  — 

"And  what  do  you  hear  from  home,  Mrs.  Graff?" 

And  that  splendid  creature  looked  through  him. 
Jove!  how  she  must  have  looked  through  him! 

"  Home !  !  Mr.  Nolan !  !  !  I  thought  you  were  the 
man  who  never  wanted  to  hear  of  home  again ! "  And 
she  walked  directly  up  the  deck  to  her  husband,  and 
left  poor  Nolan  alone,  as  he  always  was.  He  did  not 
dance  again. 

I  cannot  give  any  history  of  him  in  order;   nobody 

465 


MODERN  STORIES 

can  now;  and,  indeed,  I  am  not  trying  to.  These  are 
the  traditions,  which  I  sort  out,  as  I  believe  them, 
from  the  myths  which  have  been  told  about  this  man 
for  forty  years.  The  lies  that  have  been  told  about 
him  are  legion.  The  fellows  used  to  say  he  was  the 
"  Iron  Mask ; "  and  poor  George  Pons  went  to  his 
grave  in  the  belief  that  this  was  the  author  of  "  Junius," 
who  was  being  punished  for  his  celebrated  libel  on 
Thomas  Jefferson.  Pons  was  not  very  strong  in  the 
historical  line.  A  happier  story  than  either  of  these 
I  have  told,  is  of  the  war.  That  came  along  soon 
after.  I  have  heard  this  affair  told  in  three  or  four 
ways,  — and  indeed  it  may  have  happened  more  than 
once.  But  which  ship  it  was  on  I  cannot  tell.  How- 
ever, in  one,  at  least,  of  the  great  frigate-duels  with 
the  English,  in  which  the  navy  was  really  baptized,  it 
happened  that  a  round-shot  from  the  enemy  entered 
one  of  our  ports  square,  and  took  right  down  the 
officer  of  the  gun  himself,  and  almost  every  man  of 
the  gun's  crew.  Now  you  may  say  what  you  choose 
about  courage,  but  that  is  not  a  nice  thing  to  see.  But, 
as  the  men  who  were  not  killed  picked  themselves  up, 
and  as  they  and  the  surgeon's  people  were  carrying  off 
the  bodies,  there  appeared  Nolan,  in  his  shirt-sleeves, 
with  the  rammer  in  his  hand,  and,  just  as  if  he  had 
been  the  officer,  told  them  off  with  authority,  — who 
should  go  to  the  cockpit  with  the  wounded  men,  who 
should  stay  with  him,  — perfectly  cheery,  and  with 
that  way  which  makes  men  feel  sure  all  is  right  and 
is  going  to  be  right.  And  he  finished  loading  the  gun 
with  his  own  hands,  aimed  it,  and  bade  the  men  fire. 

466 


THE  MAN  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY 

And  there  he  stayed,  captain  of  that  gun,  keeping 
those  fellows  in  spirits,  till  the  enemy  struck,  —  sit- 
ting on  the  carriage  while  the  gun  was  cooling,  though 
he  was  exposed  all  the  time,  — showing  them  easier 
ways  to  handle  heavy  shot,  — making  the  raw  hands 
laugh  at  their  own  blunders,  — and  when  the  gun 
cooled  again,  getting  it  loaded  and  fired  twice  as  often 
as  any  other  gun  on  the  ship.  The  captain  walked 
forward  by  way  of  encouraging  the  men,  and  Nolan 
touched  his  hat  and  said,  — 

"  I  am  showing  them  how  we  do  this  in  the  artillery, 
sir." 

And  this  is  the  part  of  the  story  where  all  the  legends 
agree;  that  the  Commodore  said,  — 

"I  see  you  do,  and  I  thank  you,  sir;  and  I  shall  never 
forget  this  day,  sir,  and  you  never  shall,  sir." 

And  after  the  whole  thing  was  over,  and  he  had  the 
Englishman's  sword,  in  the  midst  of  the  state  and  cere- 
mony of  the  quarter-deck,  he  said,  — 

"Where  is  Mr.  Nolan  ?  Ask  Mr.  Nolan  to  come  here." 
And  when  Nolan  came  the  captain  said, — 
"Mr.  Nolan,  we  are  all  very  grateful  to  you  to-day; 
you  are  one  of  us  to-day;    you  will  be  named  in  the 
dispatches." 

And  then  the  old  man  took  off  his  own  sword  of  cere- 
mony, and  gave  it  to  Nolan,  and  made  him  put  it  on. 
The  man  told  me  this  who  saw  it.  Nolan  cried  like  a 
baby,  and  well  he  might.  He  had  not  worn  a  sword  since 
that  infernal  day  at  Fort  Adams.  But  always  after- 
wards, on  occasions  of  ceremony,  he  wore  that  quaint 
old  French  sword  of  the  Commodore's. 

467 


MODERN  STORIES 

The  captain  did  mention  him  in  the  dispatches.  It 
was  always  said  he  asked  that  he  might  be  pardoned. 
He  wrote  a  special  letter  to  the  Secretary  of  War.  But 
nothing  ever  came  of  it.  As  I  said,  that  was  about  the 
time  when  they  began  to  ignore  the  whole  transaction 
at  Washington,  and  when  Nolan's  imprisonment  began 
to  carry  itself  on  because  there  was  nobody  to  stop  it 
without  any  new  orders  from  home. 

I  have  heard  it  said  that  he  was  with  Porter  when  he 
took  possession  of  the  Nukahiwa  Islands.  Not  this  Por- 
ter, you  know,  but  old  Porter,  his  father,  Essex  Porter, 
—  that  is,  the  old  Essex  Porter,  not  this  Essex.  As  an 
artillery  officer,  who  had  seen  service  in  the  West,  Nolan 
knew  more  about  fortifications,  embrasures,  ravelins, 
stockades,  and  all  that,  than  any  of  them  did;  and  he 
worked  with  a  right  good-will  in  fixing  that  battery  all 
right.  I  have  always  thought  it  was  a  pity  Porter  did 
not  leave  him  in  command  there  with  Gamble.  That 
would  have  settled  all  the  question  about  his  punish- 
ment. We  should  have  kept  the  islands,  and  at  this  mo- 
ment we  should  have  one  station  in  the  Pacific  Ocean. 
Our  French  friends,  too,  when  they  wanted  this  little 
watering-place,  would  have  found  it  was  preoccupied 
But  Madison  and  the  Virginians,  of  course,  flung  all 
that  away. 

All  that  was  near  fifty  years  ago.  If  Nolan  was  thirty 
then,  he  must  have  been  near  eighty  when  he  died.  He 
looked  sixty  when  he  was  forty.  But  he  never  seemed 
to  me  to  change  a  hair  afterwards.  As  I  imagine  his 
life,  from  what  I  have  seen  and  heard  of  it,  he  must 
have  been  in  every  sea,  and  yet  almost  never  on  land. 

468 


THE  MAN  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY 

He  must  have  known,  in  a  formal  way,  more  officers 
in  our  service  than  any  man  living  knows.  He  told  me 
once,  with  a  grave  smile,  that  no  man  in  the  world  lived 
so  methodical  a  life  as  he.  "You  know  the  boys  say  I 
am  the  Iron  Mask,  and  you  know  how  busy  he  was." 
He  said  it  did  not  do  for  any  one  to  try  to  read  all  the 
time,  more  than  to  do  anything  else  all  the  time;  but 
that  he  read  just  five  hours  a  day.  "Then,"  he  said,  " I 
keep  up  my  note-books,  writing  in  them  at  such  and  such 
hours  from  what  I  have  been  reading;  and  I  include 
in  these  my  scrap-books."  These  were  very  curious  in- 
deed. He  had  six  or  eight,  of  different  subjects.  There 
was  one  of  History,  one  of  Natural  Science,  one  which 
he  called  "  Odds  and  Ends."  But  they  were  not  merely 
books  of  extracts  from  newspapers.  They  had  bits  of 
plants  and  ribbons,  shells  tied  on,  and  carved  scraps 
of  bone  and  wood,  which  he  had  taught  the  men  to 
cut  for  him,  and  they  were  beautifully  illustrated.  He 
drew  admirably.  He  had  some  of  the  funniest  drawings 
there,  and  some  of  the  most  pathetic,  that  I  have  ever 
seen  in  my  life.  I  wonder  who  will  have  Nolan's  scrap- 
books. 

Well,  he  said  his  reading  and  his  notes  were  his  pro- 
fession, and  that  they  took  five  hours  and  two  hours 
respectively  of  each  day.  "Then,"  said  he,  "every  man 
should  have  a  diversion  as  well  as  a  profession.  My 
Natural  History  is  my  diversion."  That  took  two  hours 
a  day  more.  The  men  used  to  bring  him  birds  and  fish, 
but  on  a  long  cruise  he  had  to  satisfy  himself  with  cen- 
tipedes and  cockroaches  and  such  small  game.  He 
was  the  only  naturalist  I  ever  met  who  knew  anything 

469 


MODERN  STORIES 

about  the  habits  of  the  house-fly  and  the  mosquito.  All 
those  people  can  tell  you  whether  they  are  Lepidoptera 
or  Steptopotera ;  but  as  for  telling  how  you  can  get  rid  of 
them,  or  how  they  get  away  from  you  when  you  strike 
them,  — why,  Linnaeus  knew  as  little  of  that  as  John 
Foy  the  idiot  did.  These  nine  hours  made  Nolan's  reg- 
ular daily  "  occupation."  The  rest  of  the  time  he  talked 
or  walked.  Till  he  grew  very  old,  he  went  aloft  a  great 
deal.  He  always  kept  up  his  exercise ;  and  I  never  heard 
that  he  was  ill.  If  any  other  man  was  ill,  he  was  the 
kindest  nurse  in  the  world ;  and  he  knew  more  than  half 
the  surgeons  do.  Then  if  anybody  was  sick  or  died,  or 
if  the  captain  wanted  him  to  on  any  other  occasion,  he 
was  always  ready  to  read  prayers.  I  have  said  that  he 
read  beautifully. 

My  own  acquaintance  with  Philip  Nolan  began  six 
or  eight  years  after  the  war,  on  my  first  voyage  after  I 
was  appointed  a  midshipman.  It  was  in  the  first  days 
after  our  Slave-Trade  treaty,  while  the  Reigning  House, 
which  was  still  the  House  of  Virginia,  had  still  a  sort  of 
sentimentalism  about  the  suppression  of  the  horrors 
of  the  Middle  Passage,  and  something  was  sometimes 
done  that  way.  We  were  in  the  South  Atlantic  on  that 
business.  From  the  time  I  joined,  I  believe  I  thought 
Nolan  was  a  sort  of  lay  chaplain,  —  a  chaplain  with 
a  blue  coat.  I  never  asked  about  him.  Everything  in 
the  ship  was  strange  to  me.  I  knew  it  was  green  to  ask 
questions,  and  I  suppose  I  thought  there  was  a  "  Plain 
Buttons"  on  every  ship.  We  had  him  to  dine  in  our 
mess  once  a  week,  and  the  caution  was  given  that  on 
that  day  nothing  was  to  be  said  about  home.    But  if 

470 


THE  MAN  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY 

they  had  told  us  not  to  say  anything  about  the  planet 
Mars  or  the  Book  of  Deuteronomy,  I  should  not  have 
asked  why;  there  were  a  great  many  things  which 
seemed  to  me  to  have  as  little  reason.  I  first  came  to 
understand  anything  about  "  the  man  without  a  coun- 
try "  one  day  when  we  overhauled  a  dirty  little  schooner 
which  had  slaves  on  board.  An  officer  was  sent  to  take 
charge  of  her,  and,  after  a  few  minutes,  he  sent  back  to 
his  boat  to  ask  that  some  one  might  be  sent  him  who 
could  speak  Portuguese.  We  were  all  looking  over  the 
rail  when  the  message  came,  and  we  all  wished  we  could 
interpret,  when  the  captain  asked  who  spoke  Portuguese. 
But  none  of  the  officers  did;  and  just  as  the  captain 
was  sending  forward  to  ask  if  any  of  the  people  could, 
Nolan  stepped  out  and  said  he  should  be  glad  to  inter- 
pret, if  the  captain  wished,  as  he  understood  the  lan- 
guage. The  captain  thanked  him,  fitted  out  another 
boat  with  him,  and  in  this  boat  it  was  my  luck  to  go. 

When  we  got  there,  it  was  such  a  scene  as  you  seldom 
see,  and  never  want  to.  Nastiness  beyond  account,  and 
chaos  run  loose  in  the  midst  of  the  nastiness.  There 
were  not  a  great  many  of  the  negroes;  but  by  way  of 
making  what  there  were  understand  that  they  were 
free,  Vaughan  had  had  their  hand-cuffs  and  ankle-cuffs 
knocked  off,  and,  for  convenience'  sake  was  putting 
them  upon  the  rascals  of  the  schooner's  crew.  The  ne- 
groes were,  most  of  them,  out  of  the  hold,  and  swarm- 
ing all  round  the  dirty  deck,  with  a  central  throng  sur- 
rounding Vaughan  and  addressing  him  in  every  dialect 
and  patois  of  a  dialect,  from  the  Zulu  click  up  to  the 
Parisian  of  Beledeljereed. 

471 


MODERN  STORIES 

As  we  came  on  deck,  Vaughan  looked  down  from  a 
hogshead,  on  which  he  had  mounted  in  desperation, 
and  said,  — 

"For  God's  love,  is  there  anybody  who  can  make 
these  wretches  understand  something  ?  The  men  gave 
them  rum,  and  that  did  not  quiet  them.  I  knocked  that 
big  fellow  down  twice,  and  that  did  not  soothe  him. 
And  then  I  talked  Choctaw  to  all  of  them  together;  and 
I'll  be  hanged  if  they  understood  that  as  well  as  they 
understood  the  English." 

Nolan  said  he  could  speak  Portuguese,  and  one  or 
two  fine-looking  Kroomen  were  dragged  out,  who,  as 
it  had  been  found  already,  had  worked  for  the  Portu- 
guese on  the  coast  at  Fernando  Po. 

"Tell  them  they  are  free,"  said  Vaughan;  "and  tell 
them  that  these  rascals  are  to  be  hanged  as  soon  as  we 
can  get  rope  enough." 

Nolan  "  put  that  into  Spanish,"  —  that  is,  he  ex- 
plained it  in  such  Portuguese  as  the  Kroomen  could 
understand,  and  they  in  turn  to  such  of  the  negroes  as 
could  understand  them.  Then  there  was  such  a  yell  of 
delight,  clinching  of  fists,  leaping  and  dancing,  kissing 
of  Nolan's  feet,  and  a  general  rush  made  to  the  hogs- 
head by  way  of  spontaneous  worship  of  Vaughan,  as 
the  deus  ex  machina  of  the  occasion. 

"Tell  them,"  said  Vaughan,  well  pleased,  "that  I 
will  take  them  all  to  Cape  Palmas." 

This  did  not  answer  so  well.  Cape  Palmas  was  prac- 
tically as  far  from  the  homes  of  most  of  them  as  New 
Orleans  or  Rio  Janeiro  was;  that  is,  they  would  be 
eternally  separated  from  home  there.    And  their  inter- 

472 


THE  MAN  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY 

preters,  as  we  could  understand,  instantly  said,  "Ah, 
non  Palmas,"  and  began  to  propose  infinite  other  expe- 
dients in  most  voluble  language.  Vaughan  was  rather 
disappointed  at  this  result  of  his  liberality,  and  asked 
Nolan  eagerly  what  they  said.  The  drops  stood  on  poor 
Nolan's  white  forehead,  as  he  hushed  the  men  down, 
and  said,  — 

"He  says,  'Not  Palmas.'  He  says,  'Take  us  home, 
take  us  to  our  own  country,  take  us  to  our  own  house, 
take  us  to  our  own  pickaninnies  and  our  own  women.' 
He  says  he  has  an  old  father  and  mother  who  will  die 
if  they  do  not  see  him.  And  this  one  says  he  left  his 
people  all  sick,  and  paddled  down  to  Fernando  to 
beg  the  white  doctor  to  come  and  help  them,  and 
that  these  devils  caught  him  in  the  bay  just  in  sight  of 
home,  and  that  he  has  never  seen  anybody  from  home 
since  then.  And  this  one  says,"  choked  out  Nolan, 
"that  he  has  not  heard  a  word  from  his  home  in  six 
months,  while  he  has  been  locked  up  in  an  infernal 
barracoon." 

Vaughan  always  said  he  grew  gray  himself  while 
Nolan  struggled  through  this  interpretation.  I,  who 
did  not  understand  anything  of  the  passion  involved 
in  it,  saw  that  the  very  elements  were  melting  with 
fervent  heat,  and  that  something  was  to  pay  somewhere. 
Even  the  negroes  themselves  stopped  howling,  as  they 
saw  Nolan's  agony,  and  Vaughan 's  almost  equal  agony 
of  sympathy.  As  quick  as  he  could  get  words  he 
said,  — 

"Tell  them  yes,  yes,  yes;  tell  them  they  shall  go  to 
the  Mountains  of  the  Moon,  if  they  will.    If  I  sail  the 

473 


MODERN  STORIES 

schooner  through  the  Great  White  Desert,  they  shall 
go  home!" 

And  after  some  fashion  Nolan  said  so.  And  then  they 
all  fell  to  kissing  him  again,  and  wanted  to  rub  his  nose 
with  theirs. 

But  he  could  not  stand  it  long;  and  getting  Vaughan 
to  say  he  might  go  back,  he  beckoned  me  down  into  our 
boat.  As  we  lay  back  in  the  stern-sheets  and  the  men 
gave  way,  he  said  to  me,  "  Youngster,  let  that  show  you 
what  it  is  to  be  without  a  family,  without  a  home,  and 
without  a  country.  And  if  you  are  ever  tempted  to  say 
a  word  or  to  do  a  thing  that  shall  put  a  bar  between  you 
and  your  family,  your  home,  and  your  country,  pray 
God  in  his  mercy  to  take  you  that  instant  home  to  his 
own  heaven.  Stick  by  your  family,  boy;  forget  you  have 
a  self,  while  you  do  everything  for  them.  Think  of  your 
home,  boy;  write  and  send,  and  talk  about  it.  Let  it  be 
nearer  and  nearer  to  your  thought,  the  farther  you  have 
to  travel  from  it;  and  rush  back  to  it,  when  you  are  free, 
as  that  poor  black  slave  is  doing  now.  And  for  your 
country,  boy,"  and  the  words  rattled  in  his  throat,  "and 
for  that  flag,"  and  he  pointed  to  the  ship,  "  never  dream 
a  dream  but  of  serving  her  as  she  bids  you,  though  the 
service  carry  you  through  a  thousand  hells.  No  matter 
what  happens  to  you,  no  matter  who  flatters  you  or 
who  abuses  you,  never  look  at  another  flag,  never  let  a 
night  pass  but  you  pray  God  to  bless  that  flag.  Re- 
member, boy,  that  behind  all  these  men  you  have  to 
do  with,  behind  officers,  and  government,  and  people 
even,  there  is  the  Country  Herself,  your  Country,  and 
that  you  belong  to  Her  as  you  belong  to  your  own 

474 


THE  MAN  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY 

mother.  Stand  by  Her,  boy,  as  you  would  stand  by 
your  mother,  if  those  devils  there  had  got  hold  of  her 
to-day!" 

I  was  frightened  to  death  by  his  calm,  hard  passion ; 
but  I  blundered  out,  that  I  would,  by  all  that  was  holy, 
and  that  I  had  never  thought  of  doing  anything  else. 
He  hardly  seemed  to  hear  me;  but  he  did,  almost  in  a 
whisper,  say,  "  Oh,  if  anybody  had  said  so  to  me  when 
I  was  of  your  age!" 

I  think  it  was  this  half -confidence  of  his,  which  I 
never  abused,  for  I  never  told  this  story  till  now,  which 
afterward  made  us  great  friends.  He  was  very  kind  to 
me.  Often  he  sat  up,  or  even  got  up,  at  night,  to  walk 
the  deck  with  me,  when  it  was  my  watch.  He  explained 
to  me  a  great  deal  of  my  mathematics,  and  I  owe  to 
him  my  taste  for  mathematics.  He  lent  me  books,  and 
helped  me  about  my  reading.  He  never  alluded  so  di- 
rectly to  his  story  again;  but  from  one  and  another 
officer  I  have  learned,  in  thirty  years,  what  I  am  telling. 
When  we  parted  from  him  in  St.  Thomas  Harbor,  at 
the  end  of  our  cruise,  I  was  more  sorry  than  I  can  tell. 
I  was  very  glad  to  meet  him  again  in  1830;  and  later 
in  life,  when  I  thought  I  had  some  influence  in  Wash- 
ington, I  moved  heaven  and  earth  to  have  him  dis- 
charged. But  it  was  like  getting  a  ghost  out  of  prison. 
They  pretended  there  was  no  such  man,  and  never  was 
such  a  man.  They  will  say  so  at  the  Department  now! 
Perhaps  they  do  not  know.  It  will  not  be  the  first  thing 
in  the  service  of  which  the  Department  appears  to  know 
nothing ! 

There  is  a  story  that  Nolan  met  Burr  once  on  one  of 

475 


MODERN  STORIES 

our  vessels,  when  a  party  of  Americans  came  on  board 
in  the  Mediterranean.  But  this  I  believe  to  be  a  lie; 
or,  rather,  it  is  a  myth,  ben  trovato,  involving  a  tre- 
mendous blowing-up  with  which  he  sunk  Burr,  — 
asking  him  how  he  liked  to  be  "without  a  country." 
But  it  is  clear,  from  Burr's  life,  that  nothing  of  the 
sort  could  have  happened;  and  I  mention  this  only  as 
an  illustration  of  the  stories  which  get  a-going  where 
there  is  the  least  mystery  at  bottom. 

So  poor  Philip  Nolan  had  his  wish  fulfilled.  I  know 
but  one  fate  more  dreadful:  it  is  the  fate  reserved  for 
those  men  who  shall  have  one  day  to  exile  themselves 
from  their  country  because  they  have  attempted  her 
ruin,  and  shall  have  at  the  same  time  to  see  the  pros- 
perity and  honor  to  which  she  rises  when  she  has  rid 
herself  of  them  and  their  iniquities.  The  wish  of  poor 
Nolan,  as  we  all  learned  to  call  him,  not  because  his 
punishment  was  too  great,  but  because  his  repentance 
was  so  clear,  was  precisely  the  wish  of  every  Bragg 
and  Beauregard  who  broke  a  soldier's  oath  two  years 
ago,  and  of  every  Maury  and  Barron  who  broke  a 
sailor's.  I  do  not  know  how  often  they  have  repented. 
I  do  know  that  they  have  done  all  that  in  them  lay 
that  they  might  have  no  country,  —  that  all  the  honors, 
associations,  memories,  and  hopes  which  belong  to 
"country"  might  be  broken  up  into  little  shreds  and 
distributed  to  the  winds.  I  know,  too,  that  their  pun- 
ishment, as  they  vegetate  through  what  is  left  of  life 
to  them  in  wretched  Boulognes  and  Leicester  Squares, 
where  they  are  destined  to  upbraid  each  other  till  they 
die,  will  have  all  the  agony  of  Nolan's,  with  the  added 

476 


THE  MAN  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY 

pang  that  every  one  who  sees  them  will  see  them  to 
despise  and  to  execrate  them.  They  will  have  their 
wish,  like  him. 

For  him,  poor  fellow,  he  repented  of  his  folly,  and 
then,  like  a  man,  submitted  to  the  fate  he  had  asked 
for.  He  never  intentionally  added  to  the  difficulty  or 
delicacy  of  the  charge  of  those  who  had  him  in  hold. 
Accidents  would  happen;  but  they  never  happened 
from  his  fault.  Lieutenant  Truxton  told  me  that,  when 
Texas  was  annexed,  there  was  a  careful  discussion 
among  the  officers  whether  they  should  get  hold  of 
Nolan's  handsome  set  of  maps  and  cut  Texas  out  of  it, 
—  from  the  map  of  the  world  and  the  map  of  Mexico. 
The  United  States  had  been  cut  out  when  the  atlas  was 
bought  for  him.  But  it  was  voted  rightly  enough,  that 
to  do  this  would  be  virtually  to  reveal  to  him  what  had 
happened,  or,  as  Harry  Cole  said,  to  make  him  think 
old  Burr  had  succeeded.  So  it  was  from  no  fault  of 
Nolan's  that  a  great  botch  happened  at  my  own  table, 
when,  for  a  short  time,  I  was  in  command  of  the  George 
Washington  corvette,  on  the  South  American  station. 
We  were  lying  in  the  La  Plata,  and  some  of  the  officers, 
who  had  been  on  shore,  and  had  just  joined  again,  were 
entertaining  us  with  accounts  of  their  misadventures 
in  riding  the  half-wild  horses  of  Buenos  Ayres.  Nolan 
was  at  table,  and  was  in  an  unusually  bright  and  talka- 
tive mood.  Some  story  of  a  tumble  reminded  him  of  an 
adventure  of  his  own,  when  he  was  catching  wild  horses 
in  Texas  with  his  brother  Stephen,  at  a  time  when  he 
must  have  been  quite  a  boy.  He  told  the  story  with  a 
good  deal  of  spirit,  — so  much  so,   that  the  silence 

477 


MODERN  STORIES 

which  often  follows  a  good  story  hung  over  the  table 
for  an  instant,  to  be  broken  by  Nolan  himself.  For 
he  asked,  perfectly  unconsciously,  — 

"  Pray,  what  has  become  of  Texas  ?  After  the  Mex- 
icans got  their  independence,  I  thought  that  province 
of  Texas  would  come  forward  very  fast.  It  is  really  one 
of  the  finest  regions  on  earth;  it  is  the  Italy  of  this 
continent.  But  I  have  not  seen  or  heard  a  word  of 
Texas  for  near  twenty  years." 

There  were  two  Texan  officers  at  the  table.  The  rea- 
son he  had  never  heard  of  Texas  was  that  Texas  and 
her  affairs  had  been  painfully  cut  out  of  his  newspapers 
since  Austin  began  his  settlements;  so  that,  while  he 
read  of  Honduras  and  Tamaulipas,  and  till  quite  lately, 
of  California,  — this  virgin  province,  in  which  his 
brother  had  traveled  so  far,  and,  I  believe,  had  died, 
had  ceased  to  be  to  him.  Waters  and  Williams,  the  two 
Texas  men,  looked  grimly  at  each  other,  and  tried  not 
to  laugh.  Edward  Morris  had  his  attention  attracted 
by  the  third  link  in  the  chain  of  the  captain's  chande- 
lier. Watrous  was  seized  with  a  convulsion  of  sneezing. 
Nolan  himself  saw  that  something  was  to  pay,  he  did 
not  know  what.  And  I,  as  master  of  the  feast,  had 
to  say,  — 

"Texas  is  out  of  the  map,  Mr.  Nolan.  Have  you 
seen  Captain  Back's  curious  account  of  Sir  Thomas 
Roe's  Welcome  ? " 

After  that  cruise  I  never  saw  Nolan  again.  I  wrote 
to  him  at  least  twice  a  year,  for  in  that  voyage  we  be- 
came even  confidentially  intimate;  but  he  never  wrote 
to  me.  The  other  men  tell  me  that  in  those  fifteen  years 

478 


THE  MAN  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY 

he  aged  very  fast,  as  well  he  might  indeed,  but  that  he 
was  still  the  same  gentle,  uncomplaining,  silent  sufferer 
that  he  ever  was,  bearing  as  best  he  could  his  self' 
appointed  punishment,  — rather  less  social,  perhaps, 
with  new  men  whom  he  did  not  know,  but  more  anxious, 
apparently,  than  ever  to  serve  and  befriend  and  teach 
the  boys,  some  of  whom  fairly  seemed  to  worship  him. 
And  now,  it  seems,  the  dear  old  fellow  is  dead.  He  has 
found  a  home  at  last,  and  a  country. 

Since  writing  this,  and  while  considering  whether  or 
no  I  would  print  it,  as  a  warning  to  the  young  Nolans 
and  Vallandighams  and  Tatnals  of  to-day  of  what  it 
is  to  throw  away  a  country,  I  have  received  from  Dan- 
forth,  who  is  on  board  the  Levant,  a  letter  which  gives 
an  account  of  Nolan's  last  hours.  It  removes  all  my 
doubts  about  telling  this  story. 

To  understand  the  first  words  of  the  letter,  the  non- 
professional reader  should  remember  that  after  1817, 
the  position  of  every  officer  who  had  Nolan  in  charge 
was  one  of  the  greatest  delicacy.  The  government  had 
failed  to  renew  the  order  of  1807  regarding  him.  What 
was  a  man  to  do  ?  Should  he  let  him  go  ?  What,  then, 
if  he  were  called  to  account  by  the  Department  for 
violating  the  order  of  1807  ?  Should  he  keep  him  ? 
What,  then,  if  Nolan  should  be  liberated  some  day, 
and  should  bring  an  action  for  false  imprisonment  or 
kidnapping  against  every  man  who  had  had  him  in 
charge  ?  I  urged  and  pressed  this  upon  Southard,  and 
I  have  reason  to  think  that  other  officers  did  the  same 
thing.    But  the  Secretary  always  said,  as  they  so  often 

479 


MODERN  STORIES 

do  at  Washington,  that  there  were  no  special  orders  to 
give,  and  that  we  must  act  on  our  own  judgment.  That 
means,  "If  you  succeed,  you  will  be  sustained;  if  you 
fail,  you  will  be  disavowed."  Well,  as  Danforth  says, 
all  that  is  over  now,  though  I  do  not  know  but  I  expose 
myself  to  a  criminal  prosecution  on  the  evidence  of  the 
very  revelation  I  am  making. 
Here  is  the  letter:  — 

Levant,  2°  2'  S.  @  131°  W. 

Dear  Fred,  — I  try  to  find  heart  and  life  to  tell  you 
that  it  is  all  over  with  dear  old  Nolan.  I  have  been  with 
him  on  this  voyage  more  than  I  ever  was,  and  I  can  un- 
derstand wholly  now  the  way  in  which  you  used  to  speak 
of  the  dear  old  fellow.  I  could  see  that  he  was  not  strong, 
but  I  had  no  idea  the  end  was  so  near.  The  doctor  has 
been  watching  him  very  carefully,  and  yesterday  morn- 
ing came  to  me  and  told  me  that  Nolan  was  not  so  well, 
and  had  not  left  his  stateroom,  — a  thing  I  never  re- 
member before.  He  had  let  the  doctor  come  and  see 
him  as  he  lay  there,  —  the  first  time  the  doctor  had  been 
in  the  stateroom,  — and  he  said  he  should  like  to  see 
me.  Oh,  dear !  do  you  remember  the  mysteries  we  boys 
used  to  invent  about  his  room,  in  the  old  Intrepid  days  ? 
Well,  I  went  in,  and  there,  to  be  sure,  the  poor  fellow 
lay  in  his  berth,  smiling  pleasantly  as  he  gave  me  his 
hand,  but  looking  very  frail.  I  could  not  help  a  glance 
round,  which  showed  me  what  a  little  shrine  he  had 
made  of  the  box  he  was  lying  in.  The  stars  and  stripes 
were  triced  up  above  and  around  a  picture  of  Wash- 
ington, and  he  had  painted  a  majestic  eagle,  with  light- 
nings blazing  from  his  beak  and  his  foot  just  clasping 

480 


THE  MAN  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY 

the  whole  globe,  which  his  wings  overshadowed.  The 
dear  old  boy  saw  my  glance,  and  said,  with  a  sad  smile, 
"  Here,  you  see,  I  have  a  country ! "  And  then  he  pointed 
to  the  foot  of  his  bed,  where  I  had  not  seen  before  a 
great  map  of  the  United  States,  as  he  had  drawn  it 
from  memory,  and  which  he  had  there  to  look  upon 
as  he  lay.  Quaint,  queer  old  names  were  on  it,  in  large 
letters:  "Indiana  Territory,"  "Mississippi  Territory," 
and  "Louisiana  Territory,"  as  I  suppose  our  fathers 
learned  such  things:  but  the  old  fellow  had  patched  in 
Texas,  too;  he  had  carried  his  western  boundary  all 
the  way  to  the  Pacific,  but  on  that  shore  he  had  defined 
nothing. 

"  Oh,  Danforth,"  he  said,  "I know  I  am  dying.  I  can- 
not get  home.  Surely  you  will  tell  me  something  now  ? 
—  Stop !  stop !  Do  not  speak  till  I  say  what  I  am  sure 
you  know,  that  there  is  not  in  this  ship,  that  there  is 
not  in  America,  —  God  bless  her !  —  a  more  loyal  man 
than  I.  There  cannot  be  a  man  who  loves  the  old  flag 
as  I  do,  or  prays  for  it  as  I  do,  or  hopes  for  it  as  I  do. 
There  are  thirty-four  stars  in  it  now,  Danforth.  I  thank 
God  for  that,  though  I  do  not  know  what  their  names 
are.  There  has  never  been  one  taken  away:  I  thank 
God  for  that.  I  know  by  that,  that  there  has  never  been 
any  successful  Burr.  Oh,  Danforth,  Danforth,"  he  sighed 
out,  "how  like  a  wretched  night's  dream  a  boy's  idea 
of  personal  fame  or  of  separate  sovereignty  seems,  when 
one  looks  back  on  it  after  such  a  life  as  mine !  But  tell 
me,  — tell  me  something,  — tell  me  everything,  Dan- 
forth, before  I  die!" 

Ingham,  I  swear  to  you  that  I  felt  like  a  monster 

481 


MODERN  STORIES 

that  I  had  not  told  him  everything  before.  Danger  or 
no  danger,  delicacy  or  no  delicacy,  who  was  I,  that  I 
should  have  been  acting  the  tyrant  all  this  time  over 
this  dear,  sainted  old  man,  who  had  years  ago  expiated, 
in  his  whole  manhood's  life,  the  madness  of  a  boy's 
treason?  "Mr.  Nolan,"  said  I,  "I  will  tell  you  every- 
thing you  ask  about.    Only,  where  shall  I  begin  ?  " 

Oh  the  blessed  smile  that  crept  over  his  white  face  I 
and  he  pressed  my  hand  and  said,  "God  bless  you!" 
"Tell  me  their  names,"  he  said,  and  he  pointed  to  the 
stars  on  the  flag.  "The  last  I  know  is  Ohio.  My  father 
lived  in  Kentucky.  But  I  have  guessed  Michigan  and 
Indiana  and  Mississippi,  —  that  was  where  Fort  Adams 
is,  —  they  make  twenty.  But  where  are  your  other 
fourteen  ?  You  have  not  cut  up  any  of  the  old  ones, 
I  hope?" 

Well,  that  was  not  a  bad  text,  and  I  told  him  the 
names  in  as  good  order  as  I  could,  and  he  bade  me  take 
down  his  beautiful  map  and  draw  them  in  as  I  best 
could  with  my  pencil.  He  was  wild  with  delight  about 
Texas,  told  me  how  his  brother  died  there;  he  had 
marked  a  gold  cross  where  he  supposed  his  brother's 
grave  was ;  and  he  had  guessed  at  Texas.  Then  he  was 
delighted  as  he  saw  California  and  Oregon ;  —  that,  he 
said,  he  had  suspected  partly,  because  he  had  never 
been  permitted  to  land  on  that  shore,  though  the  ships 
were  there  so  much.  "And  the  men,"  said  he,  laughing, 
"brought  off  a  good  deal  besides  furs."  Then  he  went 
back  —  heavens,  how  far !  —  to  ask  about  the  Chesa- 
peake, and  what  was  done  to  Barron  for  surrendering 
her  to  the  Leopard,  and  whether  Burr  ever  tried  again, 

482 


s 

I- 


HE  BADE  ME  TAKE  DOWN  HIS  BEAUTIFUL  MAP  AND  DRAW  THEM 
IN  AS  I  BEST  COULD  WITH  MY  PENCIL.  HE  WAS  WILD  WITH  DE- 
LIGHT ABOCT  TEXAS,  TOLD  ME  HOW  HIS  BROTHER  DIED  THERE; 
HE  HAD  MARKED  A  GOLD  CROSS  WHERE  HE  SUPPOSED  HIS 
BROTHER'S  GRAVE  WAS;  AND  HE  HAD  GUESSED  AT  TEXAS.  THEN 
HE    WAS     DELIGHTED    AS   HE    SAW    CALIFORNIA    AND    OREGON. 


3 


E&£ 


&E1$E 


8 


&m 


THE  MAN  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY 

—  and  he  ground  his  teeth  with  the  only  passion  he 
showed.  But  in  a  moment  that  was  over,  and  he  said, 
"God  forgive  me,  for  I  am  sure  I  forgive  him."  Then 
he  asked  about  the  old  war,  —  told  me  the  true  story  of 
his  serving  the  gun  the  day  we  took  the  Java,  —  asked 
about  dear  old  David  Porter,  as  he  called  him.  Then 
he  settled  down  more  quietly,  and  very  happily,  to  hear 
me  tell  in  an  hour  the  history  of  fifty  years. 

How  I  wished  it  had  been  somebody  who  knew 
something!  But  I  did  as  well  as  I  could.  I  told  him 
of  the  English  war.  I  told  him  about  Fulton  and  the 
steamboat  beginning.  I  told  him  about  old  Scott,  and 
Jackson;  told  him  all  I  could  think  about  the  Missis- 
sippi, and  New  Orleans,  and  Texas,  and  his  own  old 
Kentucky.  And  do  you  think,  he  asked  who  was  in 
command  of  the  "Legion  of  the  West."  I  told  him  it 
was  a  very  gallant  officer  named  Grant,  and  that,  by 
our  last  news,  he  was  about  to  establish  his  headquar- 
ters at  Vicksburg.  Then,  "Where  was  Vicksburg?" 
I  worked  that  out  on  the  map ;  it  was  about  a  hundred 
miles,  more  or  less,  above  his  old  Fort  Adams;  and  I 
thought  Fort  Adams  must  be  a  ruin  now.  "It  must 
be  at  old  Vick's  plantation,"  said  he;  "well,  that  is  a 
change ! " 

I  tell  you,  Ingham,  it  was  a  hard  thing  to  condense 
the  history  of  half  a  century  into  that  talk  with  a  sick 
man.  And  I  do  not  now  know  what  I  told  him  —  of 
emigration,  and  the  means  of  it,  — of  steamboats,  and 
railroads,  and  telegraphs,  — of  inventions,  and  books, 
and  literature,  — of  the  colleges,  and  West  Point,  and 
the  Naval  School,  —  but  with  the  queerest  interrupt 

483 


MODERN  STORIES 

tions  that  ever  you  heard.  You  see  it  was  Robinson 
Crusoe  asking  all  the  accumulated  questions  of  fifty- 
six  years! 

I  remember  he  asked,  all  of  a  sudden,  who  was 
president  now;  and  when  I  told  him,  he  asked  if  Old 
Abe  was  General  Benjamin  Lincoln's  son.  He  said  he 
met  old  General  Lincoln,  when  he  was  quite  a  boy 
himself,  at  some  Indian  treaty.  I  said,  No,  that  Old  Abe 
was  a  Kentuckian  like  himself,  but  I  could  not  tell  him 
of  what  family;  he  had  worked  up  from  the  ranks. 
"Good  for  him!"  cried  Nolan;  "I  am  glad  of  that.  As 
I  have  brooded  and  wondered,  I  have  thought  our  dan- 
ger was  in  keeping  up  those  regular  successions  in  the 
first  families."  Then  I  got  talking  about  my  visit  to 
Washington.  I  told  him  of  meeting  the  Oregon  Con- 
gressman, Harding;  I  told  him  about  the  Smithsonian, 
and  the  Exploring  Expedition;  I  told  him  about  the 
Capitol,  and  the  statues  for  the  pediment,  and  Craw- 
ford's Liberty,  and  Greenough's  Washington:  Ingham, 
I  told  him  everything  I  could  think  of  that  would  show 
the  grandeur  of  his  country  and  its  prosperity;  but  I 
could  not  make  up  my  mouth  to  tell  him  a  word  about 
this  infernal  Rebellion! 

And  he  drank  it  in,  and  enjoyed  it  as  I  cannot  tell 
you.  He  grew  more  and  more  silent,  yet  I  never  thought 
he  was  tired  or  faint.  I  gave  him  a  glass  of  water,  but  he 
just  wet  his  lips,  and  told  me  not  to  go  away.  Then 
he  asked  me  to  bring  the  Presbyterian  "  Book  of  Public 
Prayer,"  which  lay  there,  and  said,  with  a  smile,  that 
it  would  open  at  the  right  place,  —  and  so  it  did.  There 
was  his  double  red  mark  down  the  page;  and  I  knelt 

484 


THE  MAN  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY 

down  and  read,  and  he  repeated  with  me,  "For  our- 
selves and  our  country,  O  gracious  God,  we  thank  Thee,, 
that  notwithstanding  our  manifold  transgressions  of 
Thy  holy  laws,  Thou  hast  continued  to  us  Thy  mar- 
velous kindness,"  —  and  so  to  the  end  of  that  thanks- 
giving. Then  he  turned  to  the  end  of  the  same  book,, 
and  I  read  the  words  more  familiar  to  me, — "Most 
heartily  we  beseech  Thee  with  Thy  favor  to  behold 
and  bless  Thy  servant,  the  President  of  the  United 
States,  and  all  others  in  authority," — and  the  rest  of 
the  Episcopal  Collect.  "Danforth,"  said  he,  "I  have 
repeated  those  prayers  night  and  morning,  it  is  now 
fifty-five  years."  And  then  he  said  he  would  go  to  sleep. 
He  bent  me  down  over  him  and  kissed  me ;  and  he  said, 
"Look  in  my  Bible,  Danforth,  when  I  am  gone."  And 
I  went  away. 

But  I  had  no  thought  it  was  the  end.  I  thought  he 
was  tired  and  would  sleep.  I  knew  he  was  happy  and 
I  wanted  him  to  be  alone. 

But  in  an  hour,  when  the  doctor  went  in  gently,  he 
found  Nolan  had  breathed  his  life  away  with  a  smile. 
He  had  something  pressed  close  to  his  lips.  It  was  his 
father's  badge  of  the  Order  of  Cincinnati. 

We  looked  in  his  Bible,  and  there  was  a  slip  of 
paper,  at  the  place  where  he  had  marked  the  text,  — 

"They  desire  a  country,  even  a  heavenly:  where- 
fore God  is  not  ashamed  to  be  called  their  God:  for 
he  hath  prepared  for  them  a  city." 

On  this  slip  of  paper  he  had  written,  — 

"Bury  me  in  the  sea;  it  has  been  my  home,  and  I 
love  it.    But  will  not  some  one  set  up  a  stone  for  my 

485 


MODERN  STORIES 

memory  at  Fort  Adams  or  at  Orleans,  that  my  disgrace 
may  not  be  more  than  I  ought  to  bear?    Say  on  it,  — 

In  Memory  of 

PHILIP  NOLAN, 

Lieutenant  in  the  Army  op  the  United  States. 

He  loved  his  country  as  no  other  man  has  loved  her  ;  but  no  man  deserved  less 
at  her  hands." 


INDEXES 


INDEX   OF  AUTHORS 


Abbott,  Jacob. 

The  Captain  of  the  Guard  rebels, 
6,  175. 
Abbott,  John  S.  C. 

Bears,  Indians,  and  Kit  Carson, 

8,3. 
The  Return  of  Napoleon  Bona- 
parte from  Elba,  and  his  Re- 
ception at  Grenoble,  275. 
Adams,  Andy. 

How  the  Cowboys  crossed  the 
Big  Boggy,  7,  228. 
Adams,  John  Quincy. 

The  Wants  of  Man,  9,  458. 
Addison,  Joseph. 

The    Spacious    Firmament     on 
High,  9,  389. 
JEsop. 

The    Goose    that    laid    Golden 

Eggs,  1,  495. 
The  Boys  and  the  Frogs,  495. 
The    Shepherd-Boy     and     the 

Wolf,  495. 
The  Lion  and  the  Mouse,  496. 
The  Sun  and  the  Wind,  496. 
Belling  the  Cat,  497. 
The  Fox  and  the  Grapes,  497. 
The  Frog  and  the  Ox,  498. 
The  Dog  in  the  Manger,  498. 
The  Cat,  the  Monkey,  and  the 

Chestnuts,  498. 
The  Country  Maid  and  her  Milk- 
pail,  499. 
The  Fox  in  the  Well,  500. 
The  Ass  in  the  Lion's  Skin,  500. 
The  Tortoise  and  the  Hare,  500. 
The  Dog  and  his  Shadow,  501. 


The  Lark  and  her  Young  Ones, 

501. 
The  Fox  and  the  Stork,  502. 
Aikin,  John,   and  Mks.  Anna 
Letitia  Barbauld. 
Things  by  their  Right  Names, 

6,24. 
Eyes  and  no  Eyes ;  or,  The  Art 

of  Seeing,  46. 
The  Colonists,  75. 
The  Little  Philosopher,  110. 
Tit  for  Tat,  443. 
Alcott,  Louisa  M. 

Jo's  First  Story,  10,  359. 
Aldrich,  Thomas  Bailey. 

Our  New  Neighbors  at  Ponka- 

pog,  7,  484. 
The  Ballad  of  Baby  Bell,  9,  36. 
Guilielmus  Rex,  504. 
The  Snow  Fort  on  Slatter's  Hill. 
10,  75. 
Alexander,  Mrs.  Cecil  Fran- 
ces. 
The  Burial  of  Moses,  9,  479. 
Allingham,  William. 
Wayside  Flowers,  9,  355. 
The  Fairies,  469. 
Almeida,   W.    Barrington    d'» 

See  Boden,  G.  H. 
Andersen,  Hans  Christian. 
The  Ugly  Duckling,  1,  233. 
The  Constant  Tin  Soldier,  246. 
The  Darning-needle,  252. 
The  Angel,  257. 
The  Fir-tree,  261. 
Arnold,  George. 

The  Jolly  Old  Pedagogue,  9, 505. 


489 


INDEX   OF  AUTHORS 


Arnold,  Matthew. 

The  Forsaken  Merman,  9,  179. 

Geist's  Grave,  357. 
Audubon,  John  James. 

Audubon's  Hostess,  8,  60. 
Austin,  Mary. 

Mahala  Joe,  10,  419. 
Axon,  William  E.  A. 

The  Mobbing    of   Garrison,  8, 
89. 

Baker,  Samuel  White. 
A  Faithful  Dog,  7,  77. 
The  Elephants  that  struck,  192. 
Ball,  Sir  Robert  Stawell. 
Are  there  People  in  the  Moon  ? 
7,  315. 
Bamford,  Mary  E. 

My  Froghopper  Friend,  7,  126. 
Barbauld,  Mrs.  Anna  Letitia. 

See  Aikin,  John. 
Barbour,  Ralph  H. 

The    Harwell- Yates    Game,   7, 
168. 
Bartram,  William. 

A  Naturalist  among  the  Alliga- 
tors, 8,  23. 
Bates,  Arlo. 

Harebells,  9,  339. 
Beecher,  Henry  Ward. 

How    Beecher     conquered    his 
Audience,  8,  95. 
Blake,  William. 

The  Child  and  the  Piper,  9,  8. 
Little  Lamb,  339. 
The  Tiger,  353. 
Boden,  G.  H.,  and  W.  Barring- 
ton  d'  Almeeda. 
Ladronius,  the  Prince  of  Thieves, 

3,3. 
Arion  and  the  Dolphin,  18. 
Bolles,  Frank. 
A  Night  alone  on  Chocorua,  7, 
407. 


Bostock,  Frank  C. 

How  to  train  a  Lion,  7,  333. 
Bourne,  Benjamin  Franklin. 
My  Escape  from  the  Patagoni- 
ans,  7,  471. 
Bourne,  Vincent. 

The  Cricket,  6,  371. 
Brereton,  John. 

A   Visit   from  the    Indians    to 
Bartholomew  Gosnold,  7, 401. 
Briffault,  F.  T. 

The  Escape  of  Louis  Napoleon 
from  the  Fortress  of  Ham,  8, 
291. 
Brooks,  E.  S. 

Brian    of    Munster,    the     Boy 

Chieftain,  8,  165. 
Charles    of    Sweden,    the    Boy 
Conqueror,  200. 
Brooks,  Phillips. 
O  Little  Town  of  Bethlehem,  9, 
312. 
Brown,  Abbie  Farwell. 
The  Giant  Builder,  2,  253. 
The  Quest  of  the  Hammer,  278. 
The  Dwarf's  Gifts,  303. 
Balder  and  the  Mistletoe,  316. 
S.  P.  C.  T.  T.,  9,  16. 
A  Family  Reunion,  20. 
Market  Day,  266. 
Browning,  Elizabeth  Barrett. 
A  Child's  Thought  of  God,  9, 

46. 
A  Musical  Instrument,  177. 
Browning,  Robert. 

The  Pied  Piper  of  Hamelin,  9, 

57. 
nerve"  Riel,  150. 
Incident  of  the  French  Camp, 

166. 
How  they  brought    the    Good 
News    from    Ghent    to    Aix, 
175. 
Song  from  "  Pippa  Passes,"  282. 


490 


INDEX    OF   AUTHORS 


Boot  and  Saddle,  297. 

Grow  Old  along  with  me,  439. 
Bryant,  William  Cullen. 

Song  of  Marion's  Men,  9,  295. 

Robert  of  Lincoln,  329. 

The  Planting  of  the  Apple-tree, 
365. 

To  the  Fringed  Gentian,  368. 

To  a  Waterfowl,  369. 

The  Conqueror's  Grave,  430. 

Thanatopsis,  443. 
Bulfinch,  Thomas. 

Owain    and   the   Lady    of    the 
Fountain,  4,  115. 

Pwyll  and  the  Game  of  Badger 
in  the  Bag,  140. 

Manawyddan  and  the  Seven  En- 
chanted Cantrevs,  148. 
Bunyan,  John. 

Christian    passes    through    the 
Wicket  Gate,  5,  3. 

A  Visit  to  the  House  of  the  In- 
terpreter, 7. 

At  the  House  Beautiful,  18. 

Christian's  Fight  with  Apollyon, 
32. 

The  Castle   of   Giant    Despair, 
38. 

The  Delectable  Mountains,  49. 

The  Pilgrims  wander  from  the 
Way,  54. 

The  Celestial  City,  59. 
Burns,  Robert. 

Flow   gently,  Sweet  Afton,   9, 
287. 

Auld  Lang  Syne,  289. 

Bruce  to  his  Men  at  Bannock- 
burn,  290. 

To  a  Mouse,  370. 

Honest  Poverty,  418. 

The  Selkirk  Grace,  453. 
Burroughs,  John. 

About  the  Fox,  7,  213. 

Our  Rural  Divinity,  246. 


Butler,  Isabel. 

The  Battle  at  Roncevals,  4, 252. 
Byron,  George  Gordon,  Lord. 

Waterloo,  9,  484. 

Campbell,  Thomas. 

Lochiel's  Warning,  6,  389. 

Lord  Ullin's  Daughter,  9,  167. 

Ye  Mariners  of  England,  300. 

Battle  of  the  Baltic,  451. 

Hohenlinden,  476. 
Carey,  Rosa  Nouchette. 

The  Heroism  of  the  Fame  Is- 
lands, 8,  221. 

Florence  Nightingale,  467. 
Carney,  Julia  A.  F.  (ascribed  to). 

Little  Things,  6,  340. 
"  Carroll,  Lewis." 

Alice  and  the  Two  Queens,  10, 
208. 
Cary,  Phosbe. 

The  Leak  in  the  Dike,  9,  30. 

Nearer  Home,  292. 

Suppose!  420. 
Cervantes  Saavedra,  Miguel 
de. 

Don  Quixote  determines  to  be- 
come a  Knight,  5,  207. 

The  Fight  with  the  Windmills, 
215. 

The  Innkeeper's  BiU,  222. 

The  Battle  of  the  Sheep,  227. 

The   Conquest    of    Mambrino's 
Helmet,  235. 

Don  Quixote's  Battle  with  the 
Giants,  241. 

Don  Quixote   meets  the  Lions, 
245. 

The  Ride  on  the  Wooden  Horse, 
256. 

The    Three    Thousand     Three 
Hundred  and  Odd  Lashes,  265. 

The  Return  and  Death  of  Don 
Quixote,  272. 


491 


INDEX   OF  AUTHORS 


€hodsko,  Alex. 

The  Prince  with  the  Golden 
Hand,  2,  401. 

The  Dwarf  with  the  Long- 
Beard,  418. 

The  Sun ;  or,  The  Three  Golden 
Hairs  of  the  Old  Man  Vsevede, 
430. 
Church,  Alfred  J. 

Romulus,  Founder  of  Rome,  3, 
31. 

How  Horatius  held  the  Bridge, 
43. 

How  Cincinnatus  saved  Rome, 
46. 

The  Story  of  Virginia,  52. 

The  Sacrifice  of  Marcus  Curtius, 
63. 

The  Quarrel  between  Agamem- 
non and  Achilles,  188. 

The  Death  of  Patroelus  and  the 
Battle  of  the  River,  219. 

An  Adventure  with  the  Cyclops, 
277. 

The  Flight  of  ^Eneas  from  the 
Ruins  of  Troy,  395. 

-^Eneas  and  Queen  Dido,  408. 

iEneas  finally  conquers  the 
Latins,  482. 

How  Ralph  the  Charcoal-burn- 
er entertained  King  Charles, 
and  afterwards  went  to  Court, 
4,  229. 

How  Fierabras  defied  King 
Charles,  239. 

The  Childhood  of  Rustem,  421. 

The  Seven  Adventures  of  Rus- 
tem, 425. 

Rustem  and  Sohrab,  450. 

ClBBER,  COLLEY. 

The  Blind  Boy,  6,  356. 
Ooleridge,  Samuel  Taylor. 
Rime  of  the  Ancient  Mariner,  9, 
197. 


Cook,  Eliza. 

Old  Story  Books,  6,  398. 
Cooke,  Rose  Terry. 

Miss  Beulah's  Bonnet,  10,  383. 
Cooper,  James  Fenimore. 

A  Race  for  Life,  10, 265. 
Cowper,  William. 

Familiarity  Dangerous,  6,  353. 

The  Cricket  (translated  by  Cou>~ 
per),  371. 

Report  of  an  Adjudged    Case, 
418. 

The  Diverting  History  of  John 
Gilpin,  470. 

On  the  Loss  of  the  Royal  George, 
9,  473. 

Verses  supposed  to  be  written  by 
Alexander  Selkirk,  482. 
Cox,  George  W.  and  E.  H.  Jones. 

Havelok,  4,  211. 
Craik,  Dinah  Maria  Mulock. 

The  Unknown  Country,  9,  433. 
Croker,  T.  Crofton. 

Daniel  O'Rourke,  1,  449. 
Cunningham,  Allan. 

Sea  Song,  9,  280. 

D' Almeida,  W.  Barrington.  See 

Boden,  G.  H. 
Dana,  Richard  Henry. 

A   Visit  to  Robinson   Crusoe's 

Island,  7,  116. 
Dasent,  George  Webbe. 

Boots  and  his  Brothers,  1,  273. 
The  Husband  who  was  to  mind 

the  House,  280. 
Buttercup,  283. 
Why  the  Sea  is  Salt,  288. 
Not  a  Pin  to  choose   between 

them,  295. 
The  Lad  who  went  to  the  North 

Wind,  303. 
Boots  who  ate  a  Match  with  the 

Troll,  308. 


492 


INDEX   OF  AUTHORS 


Gudbrand  on  the  Hillside,  312. 
Capturing  Guillemots  and  Puf- 
fins in  Iceland,  7,  305. 
Day,  Thomas. 

Tommy   Merton    meets    Harry 

Sandford,  6,  149. 
Tommy  decides  to  study  Arith- 
metic, 160. 
Defoe,  Daniel. 

Robinson  Crusoe  is  shipwrecked, 

5,  73. 
Unloading  a  Wreck,  82. 
Robinson  Crusoe's  First   Home 

on  the  Island,  89. 
Robinson  Crusoe  builds  a  Boat, 

97. 
The  Mysterious  Footprint,  103. 
The  Coming  of  Friday,  119. 
Homeward  Bound,  130. 
De  la  Ramee,  Louise  (Ouida). 

A  Dog  of  Flanders,  10,  136. 
Dickens,  Charles. 
The  Ivy  Green,  9,  354. 
The   Cratchits'  Christmas  Din- 
ner, 10,  85. 
Dickinson,  Emily. 

A  Day,  9,  514. 
Dodgson,  Charles  Lutwidge. 
t  Alice  and  the  Two  Queens,  10, 

208. 
Dorsey,  George  A. 

The  Boy  and  the  Mud  Pony,  1, 
466. 
Du  Chaillu,  Paul  B. 

An  African  Pet,  7,  417. 
Du  Couret,  Louis. 

The  Girl  and  the   Panther,   7, 

424. 
In  a  Quicksand,  430. 
A  Traveler's  Ordeal,  439. 

Edgeworth,  Maria. 
The  Purple  Jar,  6,  3. 
The  Wager,  12. 


Frank  divides  the  Cake,  26. 

Frank  learns  a  New  Way  to  eat, 
32. 

The  Birthday  Present,  130. 

The    Barring     Out,    or     Party 
Spirit,  201. 

Simple  Susan,  253. 
Edwards,  Charles  L. 

B'  Loggerhead  and  B'  Conch,  1, 
463. 
Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo. 

The  Rhodora,  9,  333. 

The  Humble-Bee,  348. 

The  Snow-Storm,  372. 

Forbearance,  388. 

Concord  Hymn,  396. 

Boston  Hymn,  404. 

Letters,  415. 

The  Mountain  and  the  Squirrel, 
454. 
Everett,  David. 

The  Juvenile  Orator,  6,  362. 
Ewing,  Juliana  Horatia. 

Jackanapes,  10,  96. 

Ferguson,  Samuel. 

The  Forging  of  the  Anchor,  9, 
490. 
Fd3ld,  Eugene. 

Little  Boy  Blue,  9,  40. 
Wynken,    Blynken,    and    Nod, 

279. 
Japanese  Lullaby,  291. 
Fields,  James  T. 

The  Captain's  Daughter,  9,  39. 
The  Alarmed  Skipper,  91. 
The  Turtle  and  Flamingo,  273. 
Don,  350. 
Fitzgerald,  Percy. 

Alexandre      Dumas     founds    a 
Newspaper,  8,  341. 
Fortier,  Alcee. 

Compair   Lapin's   Godchild,    1, 
461. 


493 


INDEX   OF  AUTHORS 


Compair  Lapin  and  Mr.  Turkey, 
464. 

^RERE,  M. 

Singh  Rajah   and  the  Cunning 
Little  Jackals,  1,  375. 

The   Brahmin,    the   Tiger,  and 
the  Six  Judges,  378. 

Tit  for  Tat,  383. 

Muchie  Lai,  2,  445. 

Panch-Phul  Ranee,  456. 

Chandra's  Vengeance,  487. 
Frith,  Henry. 

A  Runaway  Locomotive,  7,  87. 

No  Steam,  325. 

Gibb,  John. 
Beowulf,  4,  3. 

GODDARD,  JULIA. 

Thor's  Adventures  among  the 

Jotuns,  2,  263. 
How    the     Wolf     Fenris    was 

chained,  293. 
The  Wonderful  Quern  Stones, 

352. 
The  Story  of  Frithiof,  4, 193. 
Goldsmith,  Olivee. 

The  Renowned  History  of  Little 

Goody  Two-Shoes  (ascribed  to 

Goldsmith),  6,  81. 
Moses  goes  to  the  Fair,  171. 
Three  Children   sliding  on  the 

Ice  (ascribed  to  him),  351. 
Elegy  on  Mrs.  Mary  Blaize,  393. 
An  Elegy  on  the  Death  of  a  Mad 

Dog,  394. 
Gould,  Hannah  Flagg. 
The  Frost,  6,  369. 
The  Envious  Lobster,  425. 
Gray,  Thomas. 

Elegy    written    in    a    Country 

Churchyard,  9,  434. 
Griefis,  William  Elliot. 

The   Ashes    that    made    Trees 

bloom,  2,  363. 


Grimm,  Wilhelm  and  Jakob. 
Little  Snow-white,  1,  163. 
Thumbling,  175. 
The  Six  Swans,  181. 
Hansel  and  Grethel,  188. 
Faithful  John,  199. 
The  Frog-King,  210. 
The  Hare    and   the  Hedgehog, 
215. 

Hale,  Edward  Everett. 

The  Man  without  a  Country,  10, 
450. 
Hale,  Lucretia  P. 

The   Peterkins  are   obliged  to 
Move,  10,  373. 
Hale,  Sarah  Josepha. 
Mary's  Lamb,  6,  340. 
Hall,  Basil. 

Midshipmen's  Pranks,  7,  197. 
Hanson,  Charles  Henry. 

iEneas's    Adventure    with   the 

Harpies,  3,  402. 
^Eneas  in  the  Land  of  the  Cy- 
clops, 405. 
The  Funeral  Games  of  Anchises, 

433. 
iEneas's   Visit    to    the    Lower 
World,  444.  I 

^Eneas's  First  Great  Battle  with 
the  Latins,  465. 
Harris,  Joel  Chandler. 
The  Story  of  the  Pigs,  1,  474. 
How  Brother  Fox  failed  to  get 

his  Grapes,  480. 
Why  Brother  Bear  has  no  Tail, 
487. 
Harte,  Francis  Bret. 
John  Burns  of   Gettysburg,  9, 

93. 
The  Queen  of  the  Pirate  Isle, 
10,  217. 
Hawthorne,  Nathaniel. 
The  Pygmies,  2,  3. 


494 


INDEX   OF  AUTHORS 


The  Gorgon's  Head,  29. 
The  Golden  Fleece,  60. 
The  Paradise  of  Children,  107. 
The  Dragon's  Teeth,  128. 
The  Minotaur,  166. 
The  Chimaera,  202. 
The  Miraculous  Pitcher,  3,  67. 
The  Golden  Touch,  92. 
The  Pomegranate  Seeds,  114. 
Circe's  Palace,  288. 
The    Great     Stone    Face,    10, 
271. 
Hazlitt,  W.  C. 

Robin  Hood  and  the  Sorrowful 
Knight,  4,  162. 
Headley,  J.  T. 

Winfield  Scott  at  the  Battle  of 
Queenstown,  8,  66. 
Headley,  P.  C. 

A  Story  of  Midshipman  Farra- 
gut,  8,  72. 
Hemans,  Felicia  Dorothea. 
Casabianca,  6,  346. 
The  Better  Land,  377. 
The   Graves    of    a    Household, 

387. 
The    Landing    of    the    Pilgrim 
Fathers  in  New  England,  9, 
394. 
Herbert,  George. 
The  Elixir,  9,  415. 
Herrick,  Robert. 

A  Thanksgiving  to  God,  for  his 
House,  9,  427. 
Higginson,      Thomas      Went- 
worth. 
The  Things  I  miss,  9,  513. 
Waiting  for  the  Bugle,  515. 
Hill,  Charles  T. 

The  Risks  of  a  Fireman's  Life, 
7,  274. 
Holbrook,  Florence. 

Why  the  Evergreen  Trees  never 
lose  their  Leaves,  1,  514. 


Why  there  is  a  Man  in  the  Moon, 

517. 
Why  the  Cat  always  falls  upon 
her  Feet,  519. 
Holland,  Josiah  Gilbert. 
Babyhood,  9,  6. 
A  Christmas  Carol,  311. 
Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell. 
My  Hunt  after  "  the  Captain,"  8, 

100. 
The  Deacon's  Masterpiece ;   or, 
The      Wonderful     One-Hoss 
Shay,  9,  119. 
Old  Ironsides,  402. 
The  Chambered  Nautilus,  446. 
Contentment,  461. 
Dorothy  Q.,  466. 
The  Last  Leaf,  495. 
Hopkinson,  Francis. 

The  Battle  of  the  Kegs,  6,  466. 
Hoppin,  Augustus. 

At  Auton  House,  10,  36. 
House,  Erwin  M. 

Imprisonment  of  Adoniram  Jud- 
son  in  Burmah,  8,  240. 
Howe,  Julia  Ward. 

Battle  Hymn  of  the  Republic, 
9,  400. 
Howitt,  Mary. 

The  Hare's  Lament,  6,  354. 
The  Use  of  Flowers,  365. 
The  Garden,  395. 
The  Spider  and  the  Fly,  411. 
Mabel  on  Midsummer  Day,  445. 
Howitt,  William. 

The  Wind  in  a  Frolic,  6,  385. 
Hughes,  Thomas. 

Hare  and  Hounds  at  Rugby,  10, 
57. 
Hugo,  Victor. 

A    Battle    with   a  Cannon,    7, 
291. 
Hunt,  Leigh. 

Abou  Ben  Adhem,  9, 156. 


495 


INDEX   OF  AUTHORS 


Ingelow,  Jean. 

The  High  Tide  on  the  Coast  of 
Lincolnshire,  9,  113. 
Irving,  Washington. 

Rip  Van  Winkle,  10,  186. 

Jackson,  Helen  Hunt. 

My  Tenants,  9,  503. 
Jacobs,  Joseph. 

Whittington  and  his  Cat,  1,  55. 

The  Three  Sillies,  67. 

Jack  the  Giant-Killer,  72. 

The  Son  of  Seven  Queens,  385. 

How  the  Raja's  Son  won   the 
Princess  Labam,  396. 

Jack  and  his  Master,  413. 

The  Story-teller  at  Fault,  423. 

Jack  and  his  Comrades,  436. 
Jewett,  Sarah  Orne. 

Farmer  Finch,  10,  299. 
Jones,  E.  H.  See  Cox,  George  W. 
Jonson,  Ben. 

The  Noble  Nature,  9,  439. 

Kane,  Elisha  Kent. 

Dr.  Kane  to  the  Rescue,  8,  264. 
Kaufman,  Rosalie. 

Alexander  the  Great,  8,  346. 

Lycurgus,  373. 
Keary,  A.  and  E. 

Iduna's  Apples,  2,  328. 
Kennedy,  Patrick. 

The  Haughty  Princess,  1,  445. 
Key,  Francis  Scott. 

The   Star-spangled  Banner,   9, 
399. 
Kieffer,  Harry  M. 

The  War  Eagle  and  Other  Sol- 
diers' Pets,  7,  22. 

Punishments  in  Camp,  96. 
Kingsley,  Charles. 

A  Child  Ballad,  9,  22. 

The  Sands  of  Dee,  288. 

The  Three  Fishers,  305. 


Dartside,  344. 
A  Farewell,  418. 
Kipling,  Rudyard. 

Wee  Willie  Winkie,  10,  242. 

Lamb,  Charles. 

The  Housekeeper,  9,  340. 
Lamb,  Charles  and  Mary. 

The  Comedy  of  Errors,  5,  391. 

The  Merchant  of  Venice,  410. 

The  Tempest,  428. 
Langhorne,  John. 

To  a  Redbreast,  6,  341. 
Larcom,  Lucy. 

Swinging    on    a   Birch-tree,   9. 
342. 
Lear,  Edward. 

The  Owl  and  the  Pussy-Cat,  9, 
265. 

The  Jumblies,  267. 

The  Quangle  Wangle's  Hat,  270. 
"Little  B." 

The  Fox  and  the  Crow,  6,  363. 
Livingstone,  David. 

The   Lion  and  the  Missionary, 
8,  236. 
Longfellow,     Henry     Wads- 
worth. 

The  Children's  Hour,  9,  3. 

Hiawatha's  Childhood,  9. 

The  Wreck  of  the  Hesperus,  26. 

The  Phantom  Ship,  82. 

Paul  Revere's  Ride,  85. 

Stay,  stay  at  Home,  my  Heart, 
and  rest,  282. 

Christmas  Bells,  310. 

The  Three  Kings,  315. 

O  Ship  of  State  !  408. 

Psalm  of  Life,  413. 

The  Builders,  416. 

The  Bridge,  421. 

Santa  Teresa's  Book-Mark,  447. 

The  Village  Blacksmith,  456. 

The  Old  Clock  on  the  Stairs,  510. 


496 


INDEX   OF   AUTHORS 


Lowell,  James  Russell. 

The  First  Snow-Fall,  9,  46. 

The  Shepherd  of  King  Admetus, 
169. 

The  Vision  of  Sir  Lannfal,  184. 

Spring1  in  New  England,  334. 

To  the  Dandelion,  337. 

The  Fountain,  346. 

Little  Kindnesses,  413. 

The  Heritage,  425. 

The  Courtin',  497. 
Lowell,  Robert  Traill Spence. 

The  Relief  of  Lucknow,  9, 103. 
Luke,  Jemima. 

I  think  when  I  read  that  Sweet 
Story  of  Old,  9,  304. 

McAndrew,  Barbara  Miller. 

Through  the  Flood  on  Foot,  9, 
161. 
Macaulay,  Thomas  Babington. 

Horatius,  9,  124. 
Macdonald,  George. 

Baby,  9,  5. 

The  Earl  o'  Quarterdeck,  246. 

Little  White  Lily,  341. 
MacDowell,  M.  W. 

Siegfried,  4,  299. 
McMaster,  Gut  Humphreys. 

Carmen  Bellicosum,  9,  397. 
Madison,  Dolly. 

Burning  of  Washington,  8,  75. 
Mahony,  Francis. 

The  Shandon  Bells,  9,  508. 
Malory,  Thomas. 

Arthur  is  chosen  King,  4,  31. 

The  Quest  of  the  Holy  Grail,  47. 

Sir  Bors  and  Sir  Lionel,  60. 

Launcelot  and  Elaine,  70. 

The  Death  of  King  Arthur,  98. 
Marvin,  F.  S.,  R.  J.  C.  Mayor, 
and  F.  M.  Stowell. 

Ulysses  lands  on  the  shore  of 
Ithaca,  3,  333. 


Ulysses  at  the   House    of    the 

Swineherd,  339. 
His  Reception  at  the  Palace,  351. 
The  Slaying  of  the  Suitors,  374. 
Merriam,  Florence  A. 

About  the  Crow,  7,  159. 
Merrick,  James. 

The  Chameleon,  6,  416. 
Miller,  Hugh. 

The  Champion  Stonecutter,   7, 

72. 
A  Boy  Geologist  and  the  Doocot 
Cave,  8,  308. 
Miller,  Joaquin. 

Twin  Babies,  7,  3. 
Miller,  Olive  Thorne. 
The  Bird  Room,  7,  37. 
The  Busy  Blue  Jay,  40. 
The  Baby  Robin,  46. 
Polly's  Pranks,  52. 
Polly's  Outing,  58. 
The  Comical  Crow  Baby,  162. 
Milton,  John. 

Hymn  on  the  Morning  of  Christ's 

Nativity,  9,  318. 
On  his  Blindness,  429. 
Mitford,  A.  B. 

The  Adventures  of  Little  Peach- 
ling,  1,  321. 
The   Accomplished  and  Lucky 

Teakettle,  324. 
The  Grateful  Foxes,  326. 
The    Elves     and    the    Envious 
Neighbor,  2,  370. 
Moffett,  Cleveland. 

The  Pilot  of  the  Lachine  Rapids, 

7,  107. 
The  Steeple-Climber,  347. 
Moore,  Clement  C. 

A  Visit  from  St.  Nicholas,  6, 
343. 
Moore,  Thomas. 

The  Minstrel  Boy,  6,  388. 
Canadian  Boat-Song,  9,  293. 


497 


INDEX   OF  AUTHORS 


Those  Evening-  Bells,  294. 

Sound  the  Loud  Timbrel,  302. 
Moke,  Hannah. 

Parley  the  Porter,  6,  114. 
Morris,  Clara. 

When   Clara  Morris    first    met 
Garfield,  7,  268. 

Noel,  Maurice. 

When  the  Bees  swarmed,  7,  10. 
Nordhoff,  Charles. 

Our  First  Whale,  7,  146. 

O'Keeffe,  Adelaide. 

Birds,    Beasts,   and   Fishes,    6, 

358. 
The  Butterfly,  368. 
"  Ouida." 

A  Dog-  of  Flanders,  10,  136. 
Ozaki,  Yei  Theodora. 

The    Tongue-cut    Sparrow,    1, 
334. 

Palmer,  George  Herbert  ,trans- 
lator. 
The   Sirens  —  Scylla   and   Cha- 

rybdis,  3,  326. 
The  Trial  of  the  Bow,  359. 
Penelope      recognizes     Ulysses, 
381. 
Parkman,  Francis. 

Champlain's  Search  for  the  In- 
dies, 7,  457. 
The   White    Champion    of    the 
Algonquins,  8,  47. 
Parton,  James. 

Israel  Putnam,  8,  33. 
Payn,  J. 

An  Unwilling  Rebel,  8,  182. 
Payne,  John  Howard. 

Home,  Sweet  Home,  9,  281. 
Peabody,  Josephine  Preston. 
Arachne,  2,  231. 
Pygmalion  and  Galatea,  234. 


Atalanta's  Race,  237. 

Cupid  and  Psyche,  240. 

The  Trial  of  Psyche,  246. 

Orpheus  and  Eurydice,  3,  157. 

Icarus  and  Daedalus,  161. 

Phaethon,  164. 

Niobe,  169. 

Pyramus  and  Thisbe,  172. 

The  Apple  of  Discord,  179. 

The  Wooden  Horse  and  the  Fall 

of  Troy,  269. 
A  Journey,  9,  356. 
The  House  and  the  Road,  455. 
Perry,  Nora. 

Boston  Boys,  9,  23. 
Perry,  Walter  C. 

The   Fight   between   Paris  and 

Menelaus,  3,  198. 
The  Duel  between  Hector  and 

Ajax,  207. 
Vulcan      makes      Armor      for 

Achilles,  238. 
The  Slaying  of  Hector,  245. 
The  Funeral  Games  in  Honor  of 

Patroclus,  258. 
Phelps,  Elizabeth  Stuart. 
"  Did  you  speak?  "  9,  14. 
At  the  Party,  17. 
Pliny  the  Younger. 

The  Eruption  of  Mount  Vesu- 
vius, 8,  393. 
Plutarch. 

A  King's  Horse,  7,  211. 
Poe,  Edgar  Allan. 
The  Bells,  9,  486. 
A  Descent  into  the  Maelstrom, 

10,  335. 
Preston,  Margaret  Junkin. 
The  Milan  Bird-Cages,  9,  97. 
Prout,  Father. 

The  Shandon  Bells,  9,  508. 


Raju,  P.  V.  Ramaswami. 

The  Camel  and  the  Pig,  1,  365. 


498 


INDEX   OF  AUTHORS 


The  Man  and  his  Piece  of  Cloth, 
367. 

The    Lion,    the    Fox,   and    the 
Story-teller,  368. 

The  Sea,  the  Fox,  and  the  Wolf, 
370. 

The   Tiger,   the   Fox,   and   the 
Hunters,  371. 

The  Birds  and  the  Lime,  373. 

The    Raven    and    the     Cattle, 
374. 
Raspe,  Rodolph  Eric. 

The  Baron's  First  Wanderings, 
5,  373. 

The  Baron's  Journey  to  St.  Pe- 
tersburg, 378. 

The  Baron's  Wonderful  Horse, 
381. 

The  Baron's  Cold  Day,  385. 
Repplier,  Agnes. 

The  Archbishop's  Visit,  10,  411. 
Binder,  Frank. 

Nedzumi,  2,  372. 

The   Palace  of  the  Ocean-Bed, 
375. 

Autumn  and  Spring,  379. 

The  Vision  of  Tsunu,  383. 

Rai-taro,  the  Son  of  the  Thun- 
der-God, 387. 

The  Star-Lovers,  391. 

The  Child  of  the  Forest,  394. 
Roberts,  Charles  G.  D. 

Domine,      cui     sunt      Pleiades 
Curae,  9,  69. 
Rogers,  Samuel. 

Ginevra,  6,  463. 
Ruskin,  John. 

My  Dog  Wisie,  7,  34. 

The  King  of  the  Golden  River, 
10,  3. 

Sangster,     Margaret    Eliza- 
beth. 
Dinna  Chide,  9,  424. 


Saxe,  John  Godfrey. 

How    Cyrus    laid    the     Cable, 
9,89. 
Scott,  Sir  Walter. 

Lochinvar,  9,  145. 

Song  of  Clan-Alpine,  298. 

Fatherland,  409. 

HelveUyn,  477. 

The  Archery  Contest,  10,  257. 

The  Besieged  Castle,  442. 
Scudder,  Horace  Elisha. 

Little  Red  Riding-Hood,  1,  3. 

The  Three  Bears,  6. 

Little  One  Eye,  Little  Two  Eyes, 
and  Little  Three  Eyes,  9. 

Henny-Penny,  19. 

Jack  and  the  Bean-Stalk,  23. 

The  Golden  Bird,  34. 

Hop-o'-my-Thumb,  44. 

Puss  in  Boots,  86. 

Tom  Thumb,  93. 

Cinderella;  or,  The  Glass  Slip- 
per, 101. 

Hans  in  Luck,  110. 

The  Sleeping  Beauty,  116. 

Blue  Beard,  123. 

The  White  Cat,  130. 

Beauty  and  the  Beast,  149. 

The  Golden  Egg  and  the  Cock 
of  Gold,  507. 

The  Prince's  Visit,  10,  68. 
Shakespeare,  William. 

Blow,  blow,  thou  Winter  Wind, 
9,299. 

Fairy  Song,  302. 

Hark  !  Hark  !  the  Lark,  303. 

Jog  on,  jog  on,  303. 
Shelley,  Percy  Bysshe. 

To  a  Skylark,  9,  381. 

The  Cloud,  385. 
Sherman,  Frank  Dempster. 

Bees,  9,  14. 

Ghost  Fairies,  43. 

Daisies,  44. 


499 


INDEX   OF  AUTHORS 


SlGOURNEY,  LYDIA  HUNTLEY. 

The    Ladybug    and     the    Ant, 

6,  361. 
Sill,  Edward  Rowland. 

Opportunity,  9,  440. 
Skeat,  Walter  W. 

Who  killed  the  Otter's  Babies, 

1,  354. 
The  Elephant  has  a  Bet  with 

the  Tiger,  357. 
The  Tune  that  Makes  the  Tiger 

Drowsy,  363. 
The  King  of  the  Tigers  is  Sick, 

364. 
Stories  from  the  Life  of  Julius 

Caesar,  8,  403. 
Smith,  Samuel  Francis. 

My  Country,  't  is  of  Thee,  9,  393. 
Smith,  Seba. 

Revolutionary  Tea,  6,  436. 
The  Story  of  Sam  Patch,  438. 
Southey,  Robert. 

Rodrigo  and  the  Leper,  4,  349. 
The  Knighting  of  Rodrigo,  351. 
The  Cid  is  driven  into  Banish- 
ment, 356. 
The  Cid  comes  to  the  Aid   of 

his  King,  308. 
How   the   Cid   made  a  Coward 

into  a  Brave  Man,  372. 
How  the  Cid  ruled  Valencia,  377. 
The  Marriage  of  the  Cid's  Two 

Daughters  to  the  Infantes  of 

Carrion,  386. 
The  Trial  by  Swords,  398. 
The  Cid's  Last  Victory,  405. 
The  Burial  of  the  Cid,  410. 
The  Old  Man's   Comforts,  and 

how  he  gained  them,  6,  368. 
The  Battle  of  Blenheim,  372. 
Bishop   Hatto  and    his    Mouse 

Tower,  9,  100. 
The  Inchcape  Rock,  147. 
The  Cataract  of  Lodore,  375. 


Spencer,  William  Robert. 

Llewellyn  and  his  Dog,  6,  455. 
Sproat,  Nancy  Dennis. 

The  Blackberry  Girl,  6,  422. 
Stanley,  Henry  Morton. 

A  Quiet  Walk  with  Stanley  in 
Africa,  8,  260. 
Stedman,  Edmund  Clarence. 

What  the  Winds  bring,  9,  17. 

The  Discoverer,  55. 
Stevenson,  Robert  Louis. 

The  Dumb  Soldier,  9,  12. 

The  Land  of  Story  Books,  41, 

Bed  in  Summer,  43. 

The  Lamplighter,  68. 

Happy  Thought,  329. 
Stowell,   F.    M.     See    Marvin, 

F.  S. 
Swift,  Jonathan. 

Gulliver  is  shipwrecked  on  the 
Coast  of  Lilliput,  5,  141. 

Gulliver     seizes     the     Enemy's 
Fleet,  154. 

A  Lilliputian  Ode,  162. 

The  Brobdingnagian  Giants,  164. 

Adventures  in  Brobdingnag,  179. 

Gulliver's  Escape,  189. 

Tappan,  Eva  March. 

The  Country  where  the  Mice  eat 

Iron,  1,  349. 
The  Rogue  and  the  Simpleton, 

351. 
Robin  Hood  and  the  Butcher, 

4,  177. 
The  Men  who  explored  the  Mis- 
sissippi, 8,  14. 
The     Pathfinders,     Lewis     and 

Clark,  40. 
Two   Scenes  from   the   Life  of 

George  Washington,  456. 
Tate,  Nahum. 

While  Shepherds  watched  their 

Flocks  by  Night,  9,  309. 


500 


INDEX   OF  AUTHORS 


Taylor,  Ann. 

The  Chatterbox,  6,  352. 

Meddlesome  Matty,  429. 

The  Little  Fish  that  would  not 
do  as  it  was  bid,  434. 

The  Pin,  454. 
Taylor,  Jane. 

The    Discontented     Pendulum, 
1,  504. 

The  Sore  Tongue,  6,  39. 

Busy  Idleness,  191. 

Twinkle,  Twinkle,  Little  Star, 
339. 

The  Snail,  360. 

Contented  John,  367. 

The  Violet,  378. 

The  Pond,  435. 
Tennents,  J.  Emerson. 

Training   Elephants  in  Ceylon, 
7,  381. 
Tennyson,  Alfred. 

Lady  Clare,  9,  171. 

Break,  break,  break,  285. 

Sweet  and  Low,  286. 

The  Bugle-Song,  286. 

Crossing  the  Bar,  306. 

Christmas,  314. 

Flower  in   the  Crannied  Wall, 
346. 

The  Brook,  373. 

The  Charge  of  the  Light  Bri- 
gade, 471. 
Thackeray,     William    Make- 
peace. 

Little  Billee,  9,  275. 
Thaxter,  Celia. 

The  Sandpiper,  9,  380. 
Thomas,  Edith  M. 

Autumn  among  the  Birds,9, 362. 
Thompson.  Maurice. 

The  Kingfisher,  9,  361. 
Thoreau,  Henry  David. 

A  Night  at  the  Highland  Light, 
7,  393. 


Torrey,  Bradford. 

A  Woodland  Intimate,  7,  131. 
Tower,  David  B.,  and  Benjamin 
F.  Tweed. 
A  Grammar  Rhyme,  6,  357. 
Trowbridge,  John  Townsend. 
Story   of   the  "Barefoot  Boy," 

9,  52. 
Darius  Green   and   his   Flying- 
Machine,  73. 
Farmer  John,  463. 
The  Charcoalman,  501. 
Turner,  Elizabeth. 

Politeness,  6,  351. 
Tweed,  Benjamin  F.  See  Tower, 
David  B. 

Waring,  Anna  L^titia. 

"  My  Times  are  in  Thy  Hand," 
9,  441. 
Watts,  Isaac. 

The  Busy  Bee,  6,  345. 

Against  Quarreling  and  Fight- 
ing, 353. 

A  Cradle  Song,  379. 

The  Slnggard,  392. 
Westall,  William. 

Escape  of  an  Exile  from  Siberia, 
7,  491. 
White,  Henry  Kirke. 

The  Star  of  Bethlehem,  6,  381. 
Whiteing,  Richard. 

The     Escape      of     Charles     II 
(1651),  8,  187. 

Baron  Trenck,  423. 
Whitman,  Walt. 

O  Captain  !  My  Captain  !  9,  403, 
Whittier.  John  Greenleaf. 

The  Barefoot  Boy,  9,  48. 

King  Volmer  and  Elsie,  106* 

In  School-Days,  157. 

Telling  the  Bees,  159. 

The  Corn-Song,  283. 

Firelight,  454. 


501 


INDEX  OF  AUTHORS 


Wiggin,  Kate  Douglas. 

Two  Little  Runaways,  10,  44. 
Wolfe,  Charles. 

The  Burial  of  Sir  John  Moore, 
9,  475. 
Woodworth,  Francis  C. 

The  Snowbird's  Song,  6,  342. 
Wordsworth,  William. 

The  Pet  Lamb,  6,  348. 

We  are  Seven,  375. 

Lucy  Gray,  or  Solitude,  413. 

Goody  Blake   and  Harry  Gill, 
458. 

In  March,  9,  332. 


Daffodils,  333. 

To  a  Child,  440. 
Wyss,  Johann  Rudolf. 

The  Swiss  Family  Robinson's 
First  Day  on  the  Desert  Is- 
land, 6,  56. 

Yonge,  Charlotte  M. 

The  Children  of  Blentarn  Ghyll, 

7,  64. 
The   Boy  that   "  stood  on  the 

Burning  Deck,"  450. 
The  Petitioners  for  Pardon,  8, 

317. 


INDEX   OF   TITLES 


AND    OF    THE    FIRST    LINES    OF    POEMS 

{The  titles  of  general  divisions  are  set  in  small  capitals.) 


"A   chieftain  to    the    Highlands 

bound,"  9,  167. 
"A  law  there  is  of  ancient  fame," 

6,443. 
"  A  lively  young  turtle  lived  down 

by  the  banks,"  9,  273. 
"  A  Lobster  from  the  water  came,' ' 

6,  425. 
"  A  noun 's  the  name  of  anything," 

6,  357. 
"A  wet  sheet  and  a  flowing  sea," 

9,  280. 
Abou  Ben  Adhem,  9,  156. 
"  Abou  Ben  Adhem  (may  his  tribe 

increase  !  ")  9,  156. 
About  the  Crow,  7,  159. 
About  the  Fox,  7,  213. 
Accomplished    and    Lucky    Tea- 
kettle, The,  1,  324. 
"'Across    the    narrow   beach    we 

flit,"  9,  380. 
Adventure   with  the  Cyclops,  An, 

3,  277. 
Adventures      and      Achieve- 
ments, 8,  1. 
Adventures  in  Brobdingnag,  5, 179. 
Adventures   of  Little    Peachling, 

The,  1,  321. 
^Eneas,   The  Wanderings     of 

the  Trojan,  3,  393. 
iEneas  and  Queen  Dido,  3,  408. 
iEneas  finally  conquers  the  Latins, 

3,  482. 


./Eneas  in  the  Land  of  the  Cyclops, 

3,  405. 
^Eneas's     Adventure      with     the 

Harpies,  3,  402. 
iEneas's  First   Great  Battle  with 

the  Latins,  3,  465. 
iEneas's  Visit  to  the  Lower  World, 

3,444. 
Africa,  A  Quiet  Walk  with  Stan- 
ley in,  8,  260. 
African  Pet,  An,  7,  417. 
Against  Quarreling  and  Fighting, 

6,  353. 
Agamemnon    and    Achilles,    The 

Quarrel  between,  3,  188. 
"  Ah  !  dinna  chide  the  mither,"  9, 

424. 
Aladdin,  The  Story  of,  5,  287. 
Alarmed  Skipper,  The,  9,  91. 
Alexander  the  Great,  8,  346. 
Ali  Baba  and  the  Forty  Thieves, 

5,  315. 
Alice   and  the  Two  Queens,   10, 

208. 
"All  are  architects  of  Fate,"  9, 

416. 
Alligators,    A    Naturalist    among 

the,  8,  23. 
American  Stories,  1,  459. 
Among  the  Brobdingnagian  Giants, 

5,  164. 
"An   ancient    story   111  tell  you 

anon,"  9,  226. 


503 


INDEX   OF  TITLES 


"  An  easy  thing,  0  Power  divine," 

9,  513. 
Ancient  Mariner,  Rime  of  the,  9, 

197. 
Angel,  The,  1,  257. 
"  Announced  by  all  the  trumpets 

of  the  sky,"  9,  372. 
Apple  of  Discord,  The,  3,  179. 
Arabian  Nights,  The,  5,  285. 
Arachne,  2,  231. 
Archbishop's  Visit,  The,  10,411. 
Archery  Contest,  The,  10,  257. 
Are  there  People  in  the  Moon  ?  7, 

315. 
Arion  and  the  Dolphin,  3,  18. 
"Arise,   my  maiden,   Mabel,"   6, 

445. 
Arthur,  King,  The    Death  of,  4, 

98. 
Arthur  is  chosen  King  and  gets  his 

Sword  Excalibur,  4,  31. 
"As  in  her  ancient  mistress' lap,"  6, 

353. 
"As  Joseph  was   a- walking,"   6, 

383. 
Ashes  that  made  Trees  bloom,  The, 

2,  363. 
Ass  in  the  Lion's    Skin,  The,  1, 

500. 
At  Auton  House,  10,  36. 
"  At  evening  when  I  go  to  bed," 

9,  44. 
"  At  evening,  when  the  lamp  is  lit," 

9,  41. 
At  the  House  Beautiful,  5, 18. 
At  the  Party,  9,  17. 
Atalanta's  Race,  2,  237. 
Audubon's  Hostess,  8,  60. 
Auld  Lang  Syne,  9,  289. 
Auton  House,  At,  10,  36. 
Autumn  among  the  Birds,  9,  362. 
Autumn  and  Spring,  2,  379. 
"  Ay,    tear    her    tattered    ensign 

down !  "  9,  402 


B'  Loggerhead  and  B'  Conch,  1' 

463. 
Baby,  9,  5. 

Baby  BeU,  The  Ballad  of,  9,  36. 
Baby  Robin,  The,  7,  46. 
Babyhood,  9,  6. 

Balder  and  the  Mistletoe,  2, 316. 
Ballad  of  Baby  BeU,  The,  9,  36. 
Barefoot  Boy,  The,  9,  48. 
Baron  Munchausen,  TheTrav 

els  of,  5,  371. 
Baron  Trenck,  8,  423. 
Barring  Out,  The,  or  Party  Spirit, 

6,  201. 
Battle  at  Roncevals,  The,  4, 252. 
Battle  Hymn  of  the  Republic,  9, 

400. 
Battle  of  Blenheim,  The,  6, 372. 
Battle  of  the  Baltic,  9,  451. 
Battle  of  the  Kegs,  The,  6,  466. 
Battle  of  the  Sheep,  The,  5,  227. 
Battle  with  a  Cannon,  A,  7,  291. 
Bears,   Indians,  and   Kit   Carson, 

8,3. 
Beauty  and  the  Beast,  1,  149. 
Bed  in  Summer,  9,  43. 
Beecher  conquered  his  Audience, 

How,  8,  95. 
Bees,  9,  14. 
"  Bees  don't  care  about  the  snow," 

9,14. 
Belling  the  Cat,  1,  497. 
Bells,  The,  9,  486. 
Beowulf,  4,  3. 

Besieged  Castle,  The,  10,  442. 
Better  Land,  The,  6,  377. 
"  Between     Nose     and    Eyes    a 

strange  contest  arose,"  6,418 
"  Between  the  dark  and  the  day- 

light,"  9,  3. 
Bird  Room,  The,  7,  37. 
Birds  and  the  Lime,  The,  1, 373. 
Birds,  Beasts,  and  Fishes,  6, 358. 
Birthday  Present,  The,  6,  130. 


504 


INDEX   OF   TITLES 


Bishop    Hatto    and     his     Mouse 

Tower,  9, 100. 
Blackberry  Girl,  The,  6,  422. 
"  Blessings  on  thee,  little  man,"  9, 

48. 
Blind  Boy,  The,  6,  356. 
Blindness,  On  his,  9,  429. 
Blow,   blow,  thou  Winter  Wind, 

9,  299. 
Blue  Beard,  1,  123. 
"Blue    sky  and    bluer    sea,"  9, 

339. 
Boot  and  Saddle,  9,  297. 
"  Boot,     saddle,     to     horse,     and 

away!  "9,  297. 
Boots  and  his  Brothers,  1,  273. 
Boots  who  ate  a  Match  with  the 

Troll,  1,  308. 
Boston  Boys,  9,  23. 
Boston  Hymn,  9,  404. 
Boy  and  the  Mud  Pony,  The,  1, 

466. 
Boy    Geologist    and    the    Doocot 

Cave,  A,  8,  308. 
Boy  that  "  stood  on  the  Burning- 
Deck,"  The,  7,  450. 
Boys  and  the  Frogs,  The,  1, 495. 
Brahmin,  the  Tiger,  and  the  Six 

Judges,  The,  1,  378. 
Break,  break,  break,  9,  285. 
"Breathes   there  the   man,   with 

soul  so  dead,"  9,  409. 
Brian  of  Munster,  the  Boy  Chief- 
tain, 8,  165. 
Bridge,  The,  9,  421. 
British  Isles,  Heroes  of  the, 

4,1. 
Brobdingnag,  Adventures    in,    5, 

179. 
3robdingnagian     Giants,    Among 

the,  5,  164. 
Brook,  The,  9,  373. 
Brother  Bear  has  no  Tail,  Why,  1, 

487. 


Brother   Fox    failed    to    get    his 

Grapes,  How,  1,  480. 
Bruce  to  his  Men  at  Bannockburn, 

9,  290. 
Bugle-Song,  The,  9,  286. 
Builders,  The,  9,  416. 
Burial  of  Moses,  The,  9,  479. 
Burial  of  Sir  John  Moore,  The,  9, 

475. 
Burial  of  the  Cid,  The,  4,  410. 
"Burly,  dozing   humble-bee,"   9, 

348. 
Busy  Bee,  The,  6,  345. 
Busy  Blue  Jay,  The,  7,  40. 
Busy  Idleness,  6,  191. 
Buttercup,  1,  283. 
Butterfly,  The,  6,  368. 
"  By  Nebo's  lonely  mountain,"  9, 

479. 
"  By  the  rude  bridge  that  arched 

the  flood,"  9,  396. 
' '  By  the   shores   of  Gitchee    Gu- 

mee,"  9,  9. 

Caesar,  Julius,  Stories  from  the  Life 
of,  8,  403. 

Camel  and  the  Pig,  The,  1,  365. 

Canadian  Boat-Song,  9,  293. 

Captain  of  the  Guard  Rebels,  The, 
6,  175. 

Captain's  Daughter,  The,  9,  39. 

Capturing  Guillemots  and  Puffins 
in  Iceland,  7,  305. 

Carmen  Bellicosum,  9,  397. 

Carson,  Kit,  Bears,  Indians,  and, 
8,3. 

Casabianca,  6,  346. 

Castle  of  Giant  Despair,  The,  5, 
38. 

Cat,  the  Monkey,  and  the  Chest- 
nuts, The,  1,  498. 

Cataract  of  Lodore,  The,  9,  375. 

Celestial  City,  The,  5,  59. 

Celtic  Stories,  1,  411. 


505 


INDEX   OF  TITLES 


Chambered  Nautilus,  The,  9,  446. 

Chameleon,  The,  6,  416. 

Champion  Stonecutter,  The,  7,  72. 

Champlain's  Search  for  the  Indies, 
7,  457. 

Chandra's  Vengeance,  2,  487. 

Charge  of  the  Light  Brigade,  The, 
9,  471. 

Charcoalman,  The,  9,  501. 

Charles  II,  The  Escape  of,  8,  187. 

Charles  of  Sweden,  the  Boy  Con- 
queror, 8,  200. 

Chatterbox,  The,  6,  352. 

Child,  To  a,  9,  440. 

Child  and  the  Piper,  The,  9,  8. 

Child  Ballad,  A,  9,  22. 

Child  of  the  Forest,  The,  2,  394. 

Childhood  of  Rustem,  The,  4,  421. 

Children  in  the  Wood,  The,  6,  405. 

Children  of  Blentarn  Ghyll,  The, 
7,64. 

Children's  Hour,  The,  9,  3. 

Child's  Thought  of  God,  A,  9,  46. 

Chimaera,  The,  2,  202. 

Chocorua,  A  Night  alone  on,  7, 
407. 

Christian  passes  through  the  Wick- 
et Gate,  5,  3. 

Christian's  Fight  with  Apollyon, 
32. 

Christmas,  9,  314. 

Christmas  Bells,  9,  310. 

Christmas  Carol,  A,  9,  311. 

Christmas  Poems,  9,  307. 

Cid,  The  Burial  of  the,  4,  410. 

Cid  comes  to  the  Aid  of  his  King, 
The,  4,  368. 

Cid  is  driven  into  Banishment,  The, 
4,  356. 

Cid  made  a  Coward  into  a  Brave 
Man,  How  the,  4,  372. 

Cid  ruled  Valencia,  How  the,  4, 
377. 

Cid's  Last  Victory,  The,  4,  405. 


Cid's  Two   Daughters,  The   Mar- 
riage of  the,  to  the  Infantes  of 

Carrion,  4,  386. 
Cincinnatus  saved  Rome,  How,  3, 

46. 
Cinderella;  or,  The  Glass  Slipper, 

1,  101. 
Circe's  Palace,  3,  288. 
Cloud,  The,  9,  385. 
Cobbler,  stick  to  your  Last ;  or,  The 

Adventures  of  Joe  Dobson,  6, 

427. 
Colonists,  The,  6,  75. 
"  Come,  dear  children,  let  us  away," 

9,  179. 
"  Come,  let  us   plant  the  apple- 
tree,"  9,  365. 
"  Come,  listen  all  unto  my  song," 

9,  89. 
"  Come  listen  to  me,  you  gallants 

so  free,"  9,  222. 
"  Come,  see  the  Dolphin's  anchor 

forged,  —  't  is  at  a  white  heat 

now,"  9,  490. 
Comedy  of  Errors,  The,  5,  391. 
Comical  Crow  Baby,  The,  7,  162. 
Coming  of  Friday,  The,  5,  119. 
Compair  Lapin  and  Mr.  Turkey,  1, 

464. 
Compair  Lapin's  Godchild,  1,  461. 
Concord  Hymn,  9,  396. 
Conqueror's  Grave,  The,  9,  430. 
Conquest  of  Mambrino's  Helmet, 

The,  5,  235. 
Constant  Tin  Soldier,  The,  1,  246. 
Contented  John,  6,  367. 
Contentment,  9,  461. 
Corn-Song,  The,  9,  283. 
Country  Maid  and  her  Milkpail, 

The,  1,  499. 
Country  where  the  Mice  eat  Iron, 

The,  1,  349. 
Courtin',  The,  9,  497. 
Cradle  Song,  A,  6,  379. 


506 


INDEX   OF   TITLES 


Cratchits'  Christmas  Dinner,  The, 

10,  85. 
Cricket,  The,  6,  371. 
Crossing  the  Bar,  9,  306. 
Crow,  About  the,  7,  159. 
Crow  Baby,  The  Comical,  7,  162. 
Cupid  and  Psyche,  2,  240. 
Curtius,  Marcus,  The  Sacrifice  of, 

3,  63. 
Cyclops,  An  Adventure  with  the, 

3,  277. 

Daffodils,  9,  333. 
Daisies,  9,  44. 
Dandelion,  To  the,  9,  337. 
Dangers  of  the  Streets,  The,  6, 35. 
Daniel  O'Rourke,  1,  449. 
Darius    Green    and    his    Flying- 
Machine,  9,  73. 
Darning-needle,  The,  1,  252. 
Dartside,  9,  344. 
Day,  A,  9,  514. 
Deacon's    Masterpiece,   The ;    or, 

The     Wonderful      One-Hoss 

Shay,  9,  119. 
"  Dear  common  flower,  that  grow'st 

beside  the  way,"  9,  337. 
"  Dear  me !  what  signifies  a  pin  !  " 

6,454. 
"  '  Dear  mother,'  said  a  little  fish," 

6,  434. 
Death  of  King  Arthur,  The,  4,  98. 
Death  of  Patroclus  and  the  Battle 

of  the  River,  The,  3,  219. 
Delectable  Mountains,  The,  5, 49. 
Descent  into  the  Maelstrom,  A,  10, 

335. 
"  Did  you  speak  ?  "  9, 14. 
Dinna  Chide,  9,  424. 
Discontented  Pendulum,  The,  1, 

504. 
Discoverer,  The,  9,  55. 
Diverting  History  of  John  Gilpin, 

The,  6,  470. 


Dr.  Kane  to  the  Rescue,  8,  264. 

Dog,  A  Faithful,  7,  77. 

Dog  and  his  Shadow,  The,  1,  501. 

Dog  in  the  Manger,  The,  1,  498. 

Dog  of  Flanders,  A,  10,  136. 

Dog  Wisie,  My,  7,  34. 

Domine,  cui  sunt  Pleiades  Curse, 

9,  69. 
Don,  9,  350. 
Don  Quixote,  5,  205. 
Don    Quixote,   The    Return    and 

Death  of,  5,  272. 
Don  Quixote  determines  to  become 

a  Knight,  5,  207. 
Don  Quixote  meets  the  Lions,  5, 

245. 
Don    Quixote's    Battle    with    the 

Giants,  5,  241. 
Dorothy  Q.,  9,466. 
"  Down  in  a  green  and  shady  bed," 

6,  378. 
Dragon's  Teeth,  The,  2,  128. 
Duel  between  Hector  and  Ajax, 

The,  3,  207. 
Duel   between  the   Fox   and   the 

Wolf,  The,  1,  219. 
Dumas,  Alexander,  founds  a  News- 
paper, 8,  341. 
Dumb  Soldier,  The,  9,  12. 
Dwarf  with  the  Long  Beard,  The, 

2,  418. 
Dwarf's  Gifts,  The,  2,  303. 

Earl  o'  Quarterdeck,  The,  9,  246. 

Elderly  Gentleman,  The,  6,  420. 

Elegy  on  Mrs.  Mary  Blaize,  6,  393. 

Elegy  on  the  Death  of  a  Mad  Dog, 
An,  6,  394. 

Elegy  written  in  a  Country  Church- 
yard, 9,  434. 

Elephant  has  a  Bet  with  the  Tiger, 
The,  1,  357. 

Elephants,  Training,  in  Ceylon,  7, 
381. 


507 


INDEX   OF  TITLES 


Elephants  that  struck,  The,  7, 192. 

Elixir,  The,  9,  415. 

Elves  and  the  Envious  Neighbor, 

The,  2,  370. 
Envious  Lobster,  The,  6,  425. 
Eruption  of  Mount  Vesuvius,  The, 

8,  393. 
Escape  of  an  Exile  from  Siberia, 

7,  491. 
Escape  of  Charles  II,  The,  8,  187. 
Escape  of  Louis  Napoleon  from  the 

Fortress  of  Ham,  The,  8, 291. 
"Every  day  brings  a  ship,"  9,  415. 
Everybody's  Favorites,  1,  1. 
Eyes  and  No  Eyes,  or  The  Art  of 

Seeing,  6,  46. 

'"  Faintly    as    tolls     the     evening 

chime,"  9,  293. 
Fairies,  The,  9,  469. 
Fairy  Song,  9,  302. 
Faithful  Dog,  A,  7,  77. 
Faithful  John,  1,  199. 
Familiarity  Dangerous,  6,  353. 
Family  Reunion,  A,  9,  20. 
Farewell,  A,  9,  418. 
Farmer  Finch,  10,  299. 
Farmer  John,  9,  463. 
Farragut,  Midshipman,  A  Story  of, 

8,  72. 
"  Father,  I  know  that  all  my  life," 

9,441. 
"  Father,  who  keepest,"  9,  69. 
Fatherland,  9,  409. 
Fierabras    defied    King    Charles, 

How,  4,  239. 
Fight  between   Paris  and   Mene- 

laus,  The,  3,  198. 
Fight  with  the  Windmills,  The,  5, 

215. 
Fir-tree,  The,  1,  261. 
Firelight,  9,  454. 
Fireman's   Life,  The  Risks  of  a, 

7,  274. 


First  Snow-Fall,  The,  9,  46. 
Flight  of  .rfEneas  from  the  Ruins 

of  Troy,  The,  3,  395. 
Flow  gently,  Sweet  Afton,  9, 287. 
"  Flow  gently,  sweet  Afton,  among 

thy  green  braes,"  9,  287. 
Flower  in  the  Crannied  Wall,  9, 

346. 
Forbearance,  9,  388. 
Forging  of   the   Anchor,  The,  9, 

490. 
Forsaken  Merman,  The,  9,  179. 
Forty  Thieves,  Ali  Baba  and  the, 

5,  315. 
Fountain,  The,  9,  346. 
"  Four    years  !  —  and   didst   thou 

stay  above,"  9,  357. 
Fox,  About  the,  7,  213. 
Fox  and  the  Crow,  The,  6,  363. 
Fox  and  the  Grapes,  The,  1,  497. 
Fox  and  the  Stork,  The,  1,  502. 
Fox  and  the  Wolf,  The  Duel  be- 
tween the,  1,  219. 
Fox  in  the  Well,  The,  1,  500. 
Foxes,  The  Grateful,  1,  326. 
France,  Heroes  of,  4,  227. 
Frank  divides  the  Cake,  6,  26. 
Frank  learns  a  New  Way  to  eat,  6, 

32. 
Fringed  Gentian,  To  the,  9,  368. 
Frithiof,  The  Story  of,  4,  193. 
Frog  and  the  Ox,  The,  1,  498. 
Frog-King,  The,  1,  210. 
Froghopper  Friend,  My,  7,  126. 
"  From    morning  to  night   't  was 

Lucy's  delight,"  6,  352. 
Frost,  The,  6,  369. 
Funeral  Games  in  Honor  of  Patro- 

clus,  The,  3,  258. 
Funeral  Games  of  Anchises,  3, 433. 

"  Gallants,    attend,    and     hear    a 

friend,"  6,466. 
Garden,  The,  6,  395. 


508 


INDEX   OF  TITLES 


Garrison,  The  Mobbing  of,  8,  89. 
Geist's  Grave,  9,  357. 
General  Washington,  6,  348. 
German  Hero,  The,  4,  297. 
Germany,  Stories  from,  1,  161. 
Ghost  Fairies,  9,  43. 
Giant  Builder,  The,  2,  253. 
Giant  Despair,  The  Castle  of,  5, 38. 
Ginevra,  6,  463. 

Girl  and  the  Panther,  The,  7, 424. 
"  God  makes  secL  nights,  all  white 

an'  still,"  9,  497. 
"  God  might  have  bade  the  earth 

bring  forth,"  6,  365. 
God  rest  you,  Merry  Gentlemen,  6, 

382. 
Golden  Bird,  The,  1,  34. 
Golden  Egg  and  the  Cock  of  Gold, 

The,  1,  507. 
Golden  Fleece,  The,  2,  60. 
Golden  Rule,  The,  6,  346. 
Golden  Touch,  The,  3,  92. 
"  Good  boys  and  girls  will  never 

say,"  6,  351. 
"  Good  people  all,  of  every  sort," 

6,  394. 
"  Good  people  all  with  one  accord," 

6,  393. 
Goody   Blake  and  Harry  Gill,  6, 

458. 
Goody  Two-Shoes,  The  Renowned 

History  of  Little,  6,  81. 
Goose  that  laid  Golden  Eggs,  The, 

1,495. 
Gorgon's  Head,  The,  2,  29. 
Gosnold,    Bartholomew,  A    Visit 

from  the  Indians  to,  7,  401. 
Grammar  Rhyme,  A,  6,  357. 
"  Grandmother's  mother ;  her  age, 

I  guess,"  9,  466. 
Grateful  Foxes,  The,  1,  326. 
Graves  of  a  Household,  The,  6, 

387. 
Great  Stone  Face,  The,  10,  271. 


Greece  and  Rome,  Myths  of, 

2,1. 
Greek    Folk-Stories,  Old,  3, 

155. 
Grow  Old  along  with  me,  9,  439. 
Gudbrand     on     the    Hillside,    1, 

312. 
Guilielmus  Rex,  9, 504. 
Gulliver   is   shipwrecked    on    the 

Coast  of  Lilliput,  5,  141. 
Gulliver  seizes  the  Enemy's  Fleet, 

5,  154. 
Gulliver's  Escape,  5,  189. 
Gulliver's  Travels,  5,  139. 

"  Hail  to  the  Chief  who  in  triumph 
advances ! "  9,  298. 

"  Hail  to  thee,  blithe  spirit !  "  9., 
381. 

"  Half  a  dozen  children,"  9,  17. 

"  Half  a  league,  half  a  league,"  9, 
471. 

"  Hamelin  Town 's  in  Brunswick," 
9,57. 

Hans  in  Luck,  1,  110. 

Hansel  and  Grethel,  1, 188. 

Happy  Thought,  9,  329. 

Hare  and  Hounds  at  Rugby,  10, 
57. 

Hare  and  the  Hedgehog,  The,  1, 
215. 

Harebells,  9,  339. 

Hare's  Lament,  The,  6,  354. 

Hark!  Hark  !  the  Lark,  9,  303. 

"  Hark !  hark  !  the  lark  at  hea- 
ven's gate  sings, "  9,  303. 

Harwell-Yates  Game,  The,  7,  168. 

"  Hast  thou  named  all  the  birds 
without  a  gun  ?  "  9,  388. 

Haughty  Princess,  The,  1,  445. 

"  Have  you  heard  of  the  wonder- 
ful one-hoss  shay,"  9,  119. 

; '  Have  you  heard  the  story  that 
gossips  tell,"  9,  93. 


509 


INDEX  OF   TITLES 


"Have  you  not  heard  the  poets 
tell,"  9,  36. 

Havelok,4,  211. 

"  He     laughs     by    the     summer 
stream,"  9,  361. 

"Heap  nigh  the  farmer's  wintry 
hoard !  "  9,  283. 

"  Hear  the  sledges  with  the  bells," 
9,  486. 

Hector,  the  Slaying  of,  3,  245. 

Hector  and  Ajax,  The  Duel  be- 
tween, 3,  207. 

Heir  of  Linne,  The,  9,  238. 

Helvellyn,  9,  477. 

Henny-penny,  1,  19. 

"  Here  is  the  place  ;  right  over  the 
hill,"  9,  159. 

Heritage,  The,  9,  425. 

Herodotus,  Stories  from,  3,  1. 

Heroes  of  France,  4,  227. 

Heroes  of  the  British  Isles, 
4,1. 

Heroine  of  the  Fame  Islands,  The, 
8,  221. 

Herv6  Kiel,  9,  150. 

Hiawatha's  Childhood,  9,  9. 

High  Tide  on  the  Coast  of  Lincoln- 
shire, The,  9,  113. 

Highland  Light,  A  Night  at  the, 
7,  393. 

Hohenlinden,  9,  476. 

Holy  Grail,  The  Institution  of  the 
Quest  of  the,  4,  47. 

"  Home  from  his  journey  Farmer 
John,"  9,  463. 

Home,  Sweet  Home,  9,  281. 

Homeward  Bound,  5,  130. 

Honest  Poverty,  9,  418. 

Hood,  Robin,  and  the  Butcher,  4, 

177. 
Hood,  Robin,  and  the   Sorrowful 

Knight,  4, 162. 
Hop-o'-my-Thumb,  1,  44. 
Horatius,  9,  124. 


Horatius  held  the  Bridge,  How,  3, 

43. 
House    and    the    Road,   The,  9, 

455. 
House  Beautiful,  At  the,  5,  18. 
Housekeeper,  The,  9,  340. 
How  Beecher  conquered  his  Audi- 
ence, 8,  95. 
How  Brother  Fox  failed  to  get  his 

Grapes,  1,  480. 
How  Cincinnatus  saved  Rome,  3, 

46. 
How  Cyrus  laid  the  Cable,  9,  89. 
"  How  does  the  water,"  9,  375. 
"How  doth  the  little  busy  bee," 

6,  345. 
How  Fierabras  defied  King  Charles, 

4,  239. 
How  Horatius  held  the  Bridge,  3, 

43. 
How  Ralph   the  Charcoal-burner 

entertained  King  Charles,  and 

afterwards  went  to  Court,  4, 

229. 
How  the  Cid  made  a  Coward  into 

a  Brave  Man,  4,  372. 
How  the  Cid  ruled  Valencia,  4, 

377. 
How  the  Cowboys  crossed  the  Big 

Boggy,  7,  228. 
How   the    Rajah's    Son   won   the 

Princess  Labam,  1,  396. 
How  the  Wolf  Fenris  was  chained, 

2,  293. 
How  they  brought  the  Good  News 

from  Ghent  to  Aix,  9,  175. 
How  to  train  a  Lion,  7,  333. 
Humble-Bee,  The,  9,  348. 
Hunting  of  the  Cheviot,  The,  9, 

251. 
Husband   who  was  to   mind   the 

House,  The,  1,  280. 
"  Hush,   my   dear !    lie   still   and 

slumber,"  6,  379. 


510 


INDEX  OF  TITLES 


Hymn  on  the  Morning  of  Christ's 
Nativity,  9,  318. 

"  I  am  monarch  of  all  I  survey," 

9,  482. 
"  I   bring1   fresh   showers   for   the 

thirsting  flowers,"  9,  385. 
u  I  cannot  tell  what  you  say,  green 

leaves,"  9,  344. 
'  T  climbed  the  dark  brow  of  the 

mighty  Helvellyn,"  9,  477. 
"  I  come  from  haunts  of  coot  and 

hern,"  9,  373. 
"  I,  country-born  an'  bred,  know 

where  to  find,"  9,  334. 
* '  I  had  a  garden  when  a  child,"  6, 

395. 
"  I  have  a  little  kinsman,"  9,  55. 
"  I  hear  thee  speak  of  the  better 

land,"  6,  377. 
"  I  heard  the  bells  on  Christmas 

Day,"  9,  310. 
"  I  '11  tell  you  how  the  sun  rose," 

9,  514. 
*'I  met  a   little   cottage-girl,"  6, 

375. 
"  I  never  had  a  title-deed,"  9, 503. 
"  I  never  saw  the  hills  so  far,"  9, 

356, 
**  I  saw  him  once  before,"  9,  495. 
"  I  saw  the  prettiest  picture,"  9, 

14. 
"  I  sprang  to  the  stirrup,  and  Joris, 

and  he,"  9,  175. 
"  I  stood  on  the   bridge  at   mid- 
night," 9,  421. 
I  think  when  I  read  that  Sweet 

Story  of  Old,  9,  304. 
"  I  wandered  lonely  as  a  cloud," 

9,  333. 
"I  wish  the  careful  little  girls," 

9,  16. 
Icarus  and  Daedalus,  3,  161. 
Iduna's  Apples,  2,  328.' 


' '  If  ever  there  lived  a  Yankee  lad," 

9,73. 
"  If  thou  shouldst  ever  come  by 

choice  or  chance,"  6,  463. 
Imprisonment  of  Adoniram  Jud- 

son  in  Burmah,  8,  240. 
In  a  Quicksand,  7,  430. 
In  March,  9,  332. 
"  In  Mather's  '  Magnalia  Christi,'  " 

9,  82. 
"  In  May,  when  sea-winds  pierced 

our  solitudes,"  9,  333. 
In  School-Days,  9,  157. 
"  In  their  ragged  regimentals,"  9, 

397. 
"In  winter  I  get  up  at  night,"  9, 

43. 
Inchcape  Rock,  The,  9,  147. 
Incident  of  ,the  French  Camp,  9, 

166. 
India,  Myths  of,  2,  443. 
India,  Stories  from,  1,  347. 
Innkeeper's  Bill,  The,  5,  222. 
Institution   of   the    Quest   of   the 

Holy  Grail,  The,  4,  47. 
"  Into  the  sunshine,"  9,  346. 
"  Is  there,  for  honest  poverty,"  9, 

418. 
"  It  is  an  ancient  Mariner,"  9, 197. 
"  It  is  not  growing  like  a  tree,"  9, 

439. 
"  It  was  a  summer   evening,"  6, 

372. 
"  It  was  the  schooner  Hesperus," 

9,  26. 
"  It  was  the  time  when  lilies  blow,'1 

9,  171. 
"  It  was  the  winter  wild,"  9,  318, 
Ivy  Green,  The,  9,  354. 

Jack  and  his  Comrades,  1,  436. 
Jack  and  his  Master,  1,  413. 
Jack  and  the  Bean-Stalk,  1,  23. 
Jack  the  Giant-Killer,  1,  72. 


511 


INDEX   OF   TITLES 


Jackanapes,  10,  96. 

Japan,  Myths  of,  2,  361. 

3apan,  Stories  from,  1,  319. 

Japanese  Lullaby,  9,  291. 

"  Jesus,  He  loves  one  and  all,"  9, 

22. 
'  Joe  Dobson  was  an  Englishman," 

6,  427. 
Jog  on,  Jog  on,  9,  303. 
"  Jog   on,   jog  on,    the   foot-path 

way,"  9,  303. 
John  Burns  of  Gettysburg,  9,  93. 
"  John   Gilpin  was  a  citizen,"  6, 

470. 
Jolly  Old  Pedagogue,  The,  9,  505. 
Jo's  First  Story,  10,  359. 
Journey,  A,  9,  356. 
Judson,    Adoniram,    in    Burniah, 

Imprisonment  of,  8,  240- 
Jumblies,  The,  9,  267. 
"  Just  four  hundred  years  ago,"  9, 

97- 
Juvenile  Orator,  The,  6,  362. 

Kane,  Dr.,  to  the  Rescue,  8,  264. 

King  Arthur,  The  Death  of,  4, 98. 

King  John  and  the  Abbot  of  Can- 
terbury, 9,  226. 

King  of  the  Golden  River,  The, 
10,  3. 

King  of  the  Tigers  is  Sick,  The,  1, 
364. 

King  Volmer  and  Elsie,  9,  106. 

Kingfisher,  The,  9,  361. 

King's  Horse,  A,  7,  211. 

Knighting  of  Rodrigo,  The,  4,  351. 

Lad  who  went  to  the  North  Wind, 

The,  1,  303. 
Ladronius,  the  Prince  of  Thieves, 

3,3. 
Lady  Clare,  9,  171. 
Ladybug   and   the   Ant,   The,   6, 

361. 


Lamplighter,  The,  9,  68. 

Land  of  Story  Books,  The,  9,  41. 

Landing  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  in 

New  England,  The,  9,   394. 
Lark  and  her  Young  Ones,  The,  1, 

501. 
"Lars  Porsena  of  Clusium,"  9,  124. 
Last  Leaf,  The,  9,  495. 
Launcelot  and  Elaine,  4,  70. 
Leak  in  the  Dike,  The,  9,  30. 
"  Let  dogs  delight   to  bark   and 

bite,"  6,  353. 
"  Let  nothing  disturb  thee,"  9, 447. 
Letters,  9,  415. 
Lewis  and  Clark,  The  Pathfinders, 

8,40. 
Lilliputian  Ode  to  the  Man-Moun- 
tain, A,  5,  162. 
Lion,  How  to  train  a,  7,  333. 
Lion  and  the  Missionary,  The,  8, 

236. 
Lion  and  the  Mouse,  The,  1,  496. 
Lion,  the  Fox,  and  the  Story-teller, 

The,  1,  368. 
"  Listen,  my  children,  and  you  shall 

hear,"  9,  85. 
"  Lithe  and  listen,  gentlemen,  9, 

238. 
Little  Billee,  9,  275. 
'  Little  bird,  with  bosom  red,"  6, 

341. 
Little  Boy  Blue,  9,  40. 
"  Little  drops  of  water,"  6,  340. 
Little  Fish  that  would  not  do  as  it 

was  bid,  The,  6,  434. 
Little  Fisherman,  The,  6,  431. 
"  Little  I  ask  ;  my  wants  are  few," 

9,  461. 
' '  Little  inmate,  full  of  mirth,"  6, 

371. 
Little  Kindnesses,  9,  413. 
Little  Lamb,  9,  339. 
"  Little  lamb,  who  made  thee  ?  " 

9,  339. 


512 


INDEX  OF   TITLES 


Little  One  Eye,  Little  Two  Eyes, 
and  Little  Three  Eyes,  1,  9. 

Little  Peachling,  The  Adventures 
of,  1,  321. 

Little  Philosopher,  The,  6,  110. 

Little  Red  Riding-Hood,  1,  3. 

Little  Snow-white,  1,  163. 

Little  Things,  6,  340. 

Little  White  Lily,  9,  341. 

Livt,  Stories  from,  3,  29. 

Llewellyn  and  his  Dog,  6,  455. 

"  Lochiel !  Lochiel,  heware  of  the 
day,"  6,  389. 

Lochiel's  Warning,  6,  389. 

Lochinvar,  9, 145. 

"  Lord,  thou  hast  given  me  a  cell," 

9,  427. 

Lord  Ullin's  Daughter,  9,  167. 
Lucknow,  The  Relief  of,  9,  103. 
juucy  Gray,  or  Solitude,  6,  413. 
Lycurgus,  8,  373. 

Mabel  on  Midsummer  Day,  6,  445 
Madison,  Dolly,  and  the  Burning 

of  Washington,  8,  75. 
Maelstrom,   A  Descent   into   the, 

10,  335. 
Mahala  Joe,  10,  419. 

Maid  and  her  Milk-Pail,  The  Coun- 
try, 1,  499. 

Mambrino's  Helmet,  The  Conquest 
of,  5,  235. 

Man  and  his  Piece  of  Cloth,  The, 
1,  367. 

"Man  wants  but  little  here  below," 
9,  458. 

Man  without  a  Country,  The,  10, 
450. 

Manawyddan  and  the  Seven  En- 
chanted Cantrevs,  4,  148. 

"  Many  a  long,  long  year  ago,"  9, 
91. 

March,  In,  9,  332. 

Market  Day,  9,  266. 


Marriage  of  the  Cid's  Two  Daugh- 
ters to  the  Infantes  of  Carrion, 
The,  4,  386. 

"  Mary  had  a  little  lamb,"  6,  340. 

Mary's  Lamb,  6,  340. 

Meddlesome  Matty,  6,  429. 

Men  who  explored  the  Mississippi, 
The,  8,  14. 

Merchant  of  Venice,  The,  5,  410. 

"  Merrily  swinging  on  brier  and 
weed,"  9,  329. 

"  'Mid  pleasures  and  palaces  though 
we  may  roam,"  9,  281. 

Midshipmen's  Pranks,  7,  197. 

Milan  Bird-cages,  The,  9,  97. 

' '  Mine  eyes  have  seen  the  glory  of 
the  coming  of  the  Lord,"  9, 
400. 

Minotaur,  The,  2,  166. 

Minstrel  Boy,  The,  6,  388. 

Miraculous  Pitcher,  The,  3,  67. 

Miss  Beulah's  Bonnet,  10,  383. 

Mississippi,  The  Men  who  Explored 
the,  8,  14. 

Mobbing  of  Garrison,  The,  8,  89. 

Modern  Stories,  10,  1. 

Moon,  Are  there  People  in  the,  7, 
315. 

Moses  goes  to  the  Fair,  6,  171. 

Mountain  and  the  Squirrel,  The,  9, 
454. 

Mouse,  To  a,  9,  370. 

Muchie  Lai,  2,  445. 

Mud  Pony,  The  Boy  and  the,  1, 
466. 

Munchausen,  Baron,  The  Trav- 
els of,  5,  371. 

Musical  Instrument,  A,  9,  177. 

My  Country,  't  is  of  Thee,  9,  393. 

My  Dog  Wisie,  7,  34. 

My  Escape  from  the  Patagonians, 
7,  471. 

"  My  fairest  child,  I  have  no  song 
to  give  you,"  9,  418. 


513 


INDEX   OF   TITLES 


My  Froghopper  Friend,  7,  126. 
My  Hunt  after  "  the  Captain,"  8, 

100. 
"  My  tea  is  nearly  ready  and  the 

snn  has  left  the  sky,"  9,  68. 
My  Tenants,  9,  503. 
"My  Times  are  in  Thy  Hand,"  9, 

441. 
Mysterious  Footprint,  The,  5,  103. 
Myths  of  Greece  and  Rome,  2, 

1. 
Myths  of  India,  2,  448. 
Myths  of  Japan,  2,  361. 
Myths  of  Scandinavia,  2,  251. 
Myths  of  the  Slavs,  2,  399. 

Napoleon,  Louis,  The  Escape  of, 
from  the  Fortress  of  Ham,  8, 
291. 

Napoleon  Bonaparte,  The  Return 
of,  from  Elha,  and  his  Recep- 
tion at  Grenoble,  8,  275. 

Naturalist  among  the  Alligators, 
A,  8,  23. 

Nearer  Home,  9,  292. 

Nedzumi,  2,  372. 

Night  alone  on  Chocorua,  A,  7, 
407. 

Night  at  the  Highland  Light,  A, 
7,  393. 

Nightingale,  Florence,  8,  467. 

Niobe,  3,  169. 

No  Steam,  7,  325. 

"  No  stir  in  the  air,  no  stir  in  the 
sea,"  9,  147. 

Noble  Nature,  The,  9,  439. 

Nonsense  Verse,  9,  263. 

"  Not  a  drum  was  heard,  not  a 
funeral  note,"  9,  475. 

Not  a  Pin  to  choose  between  them, 
1,  295. 

Nothing,  9,  345. 

u  Now  ponder  well,  you  parents 
dear,"  6,  405. 


O  Captain !  My  Captain !  9,  403. 
"  O   Captain  !    my   Captain !    our 
fearful  trip  is  done,"  9,  403. 

0  Little  Town  of   Bethlehem,  9, 

312. 

1  c  O  Mary,  go  and  call  the  cattle 

home,"  9,288. 
O  Ship  of  State  !  9,  408. 
"  Of  Nelson  and  the  North,"  9, 451. 
"  Oft  has  it  been  my  lot  to  mark," 

6,  416. 
"  Oft  I  had  heard  of  Lucy  Gray," 

6,  413. 
"  Oh,  a  dainty   plant   is   the   Ivy 

green,"  9,  354. 
"  Oh,   say,    can   you  see,   by  the 

dawn's  early  light,"  9,  399. 
"  Oh,  say  what  is  that  thing  called 

Light,"  6,  356. 
"  Oh,  that  last   day   in  Lucknow 

fort!  "9,  103. 
"  Oh !  what 's  the  matter  ?  what 's 

the  matter  ?  "  6,  458. 
"  Oh,   young   Loehinvar   is   come 

out  of  the  west,"  9,  145. 
Old  Clock   on  the  Stairs,  The,  9, 

510. 
Old-Fashioned  Stories,  6, 1. 
Old    Greek    Folk-Stories,    3, 

155. 
Old  Ironsides,  9,  402. 
Old  Man's  Comforts,  The,  and  how 

he  gained  them,  6,  368. 
Old  Story  Books,  6,  398. 
"  Old     story     books !     old     story 

books  !  we  owe  ye  much,  old 

friends,"  6,  398. 
"On    Haverhill's    pleasant     hills 

there  played,"  9,  52. 
On  his  Blindness,  9,  429. 
"  On  Linden,   when   the  sun  was 

low,"  9,  476. 
On  the  Loss  of  the  Royal  George,, 

9,  473. 


514 


INDEX   OF   TITLES 


"  On  the  sea  and  at  the  Hogue, 

sixteen  hundred  ninety-two," 

9, 150. 
"  On   the   top   of  the   Crumpetty 

Tree,"  9,  270. 
u  One    honest    John    Tomkins,   a 

hedger  and  ditcher,"  6,  367. 
"  One   sweetly   solemn   thought," 

9,  292. 
*'  One  ugly  trick  has  often  spoiled," 

6,  429. 
Opportunity,  9,  440. 
Orpheus  and  Eurydice,  3,  157. 
Other  Poems,  9,  449. 

Otter's  Bahies,  Who  killed  the,  1, 

354. 
"  Our  hand  is  few,  but  true  and 

tried,"  9,  295. 
Our  First  Whale,  7,  146. 
Our  New  Neighbors  at  Ponkapog, 

7,  484. 

Our  Rural  Divinity,  7,  246. 

Out-of-Door  Book,  The,  7,  1. 

"  Over  hill,  over  dale,"  9,  302. 

"  Over  his  keys  the  musing  organ- 
ist," 9,  184. 

Ovid,  Stories  from,  3,  65. 

Owain  and  the  Lady  of  the  Foun- 
tain, 4,  115. 

Owl  and  the  Pussy-Cat,  The,  9, 
265. 

Palace  of  the  Ocean-Bed,  The,  2, 

375. 
Panch-Phul  Ranee,  2,  456. 
Paradise    of     Children,    The,    2, 

107. 
Paris   and   Menelaus,    The   Fight 

between,  3,  198. 
Parley  the  Porter,  6,  114. 
Patagonians,  My  Escape  from  the, 

7,  471. 

Pathfinders,  Lewis  and  Clark,  The, 

8,  40. 


Patroclus  and  the   Battle   of  the 

River,  The  Death  of,  3,  219. 
Paul  Revere's  Ride,  9,  85. 
"  Pawtucket  is  a  famous  place," 

6,  438. 

Peaehling,    The    Adventures     of 

Little,  1,  321. 
"Peet-weet!  Peet-weet,"  9,362. 
Persian  Hero,  The,  4,  419. 
Pet  Lamb,  The,  6,  348. 
Peterkins,    The,    are    obliged    to 

move,  10,  373. 
Petitioners   for   Pardon,   The,    8, 

317. 
Phaethon,  3,  164. 
Phantom  Ship,  The,  9,  82. 
Pied  Piper  of  Hamelin,  The,  9,  57. 
Pigs,  The  Story  of  the,  1,  474. 
Pilgrim's  Progress,  The,  5,  1. 
Pilgrims  wander  from  the  Way, 

The,  5,  54. 
Pilot  of  the  Lachine  Rapids,  The, 

7,  107. 

Pin,  The,  6,  454. 

"  Piping  down  the  valleys  wild,*' 

9,8. 
Planting  of  the  Apple-tree,  The, 

9,  365. 
"Please,  sir,  I  wish    a    spool    of 

beans,"  9,  266. 
"  Pluck  not  the  wayside  flower," 

9,  355. 
Poems  about  Children,  9,  1. 
Poems  and  Rhymes,  6,  337. 
Poems  of  Nature,  9,  327. 
Poems  of  Our  Country,  9,  391. 
Poems  to  think  About,  9,  411. 
Politeness,  6,  351. 
Polly's  Outing,  7,  58. 
Polly's  Pranks,  7,  52. 
Pomegranate  Seeds,  The,  3,  114. 
Pond,  The,  6,  435. 
Prince  with  the  Golden  Hand,  The, 

2,  401. 


515 


INDEX   OF  TITLES 


Prince's  Visit,  The,  10,  68. 

Psalm  of  Life,  9,  413. 

Punishments  in  Camp,  7,  96. 

Purple  Jar,  The,  6,  3. 

Puss  in  Boots,  1,  86. 

Putnam,  Israel,  8,  33. 

Pwyll  and  the  Game  of  Badger  in 

the  Bag,  4,  140. 
Pygmalion  and  Galatea,  2,  234. 
Pygmies,  The,  2,  3. 
Pyramus  and  Thisbe,  3,  172. 

Quangle   Wangle's   Hat,  The,  9, 

270. 
Quarrel  between  Agamemnon  and 

Achilles,  The,  3,  188. 
Queen  of  the  Pirate  Isle,  The,  10, 

217. 
Quern  Stones,  The  Wonderful,  2, 

352. 
Quest  of  the  Hammer,  The,  2,  278. 
Quicksand,  In  a,  7,  430. 
Quiet  Walk  with  Stanley  in  Africa, 

A,  8,  260. 

Race  for  Life,  A,  10,  265. 

Rai-taro,  the  Son  of  the  Thunder- 
God,  2,  387. 

Raja's  Son  won  the  Princess  La- 
bam,  How  the,  1,  396. 

Ralph  the  Charcoal-burner  enter- 
tained King  Charles,  and  af- 
terwards went  to  Court,  How, 
7,  229. 

Raven  and  the  Cattle,  The,  1,  374. 

Redbreast,  To  a,  6,  341. 

Relief  of  Lucknow,  The,  9,  103. 

Renowned  History  of  Little  Goody 
Two-Shoes,  6,  81. 

Report  of  an  Adjudged  Case,  6, 
418. 

Return  and  Death  of  Don  Quixote, 
The,  5,  272. 

Return    of    Napoleon    Bonaparte 


from  Elba,  The,  and  his  Re- 
ception at  Grenoble,  8,  275. 
Revolutionary  Tea,  6,  436. 
Rhodora,  The,  9,  333. 
Ride  on  the  Wooden  Horse,  Ther 

5,  256. 
Rime  of  the  Ancient  Mariner,  9, 

197. 
"  Ring  out,  wild  bells,  to  the  wild 

sky,"  9,  314. 
Rip  Van  Winkle,  10,  186. 
Risks  of  a  Fireman's  Life,  The,  7f 

274. 
Robert  of  Lincoln,  9,  329. 
Robin  Hood  and  Allin  a  Dale,  9> 

222. 
Robin  Hood  and  the  Butcher,  4r 

177. 
Robin  Hood   and   the   Sorrowful 

Knight,  4,  162. 
Robinson  Crusoe,  5,  71. 
Robinson  Crusoe  builds  a  boat,  5. 

97. 
Robinson  Crusoe  is  shipwrecked^ 

5,  73. 
Robinson  Crusoe's  First  Home  on 

the  Island,  5,  89. 
Robinson  Crusoe's  Island,  A  Visit 

to,  7,  116. 
Rodrigo,  The  Knighting  of,  4, 351. 
Rodrigo  and  the  Leper,  4,  349. 
Rogue  and  the  Simpleton,  The,  1, 

351. 
Romulus,  Founder  of  Rome,  3,  31. 
Royal  George,  On  the  Loss  of  the,, 

9,  473. 
Runaway  Locomotive,  A,  7,  87. 
Rustem,    The    Childhood    of,   4, 

421. 
Rustem,   The    Seven   Adventures 

of,  4,  425. 
Rustem  and  Sohrab,  4,  450. 


S.  P.  C.  T.  T.,  9,  16. 


516 


INDEX   OF   TITLES 


Sacrifice  of  Marcus  Curtius,  The,    Sir  Patrick  Spens,  9,  230. 


3,63, 

Sam  Patch,  The  Story  of,  6,  438. 

Sandford  and  Merton,  6,  149. 

Sandpiper,  The,  9,  380. 

Sands  of  Dee,  The,  9,  288. 

Santa  Teresa's  Book-Mark,  9, 447. 

Scandinavia,  Myths  of,  2,  251. 

Scandinavian  and  Danish  He- 
roes, 4,  191. 

School-Days,  In,  9,  157. 

"  Scots,  whahae  wi'  Wallace  bled," 
9,  290. 

Scott,  Winfield,  at  the  Battle  of 
Queenstown,  8,  66. 

Scylla  and  Charybdis,  3,  326. 

Sea  is  Salt,  Why  the,  1,  288. 

Sea  Song,  9,  280. 

Sea,  the  Fox,  and  the  Wolf,  The, 
1,  370. 

Selkirk  Grace,  The,  9,  453. 

Seven  Adventures  of  Rustem,  The, 
4,  425. 

Shakespeare,  Tales  from,  5, 
389. 

Shandon  Bells,  The,  9,  508. 

"  She  doeth  little  kindnesses,"  9, 
413. 

Shepherd-Boy  and  the  Wolf,  The, 
1,495. 

Shepherd  of  King  Admetus,  The, 
9,  169. 

"  Should  auld  acquaintance  be  for- 
got," 9,  289. 

"  Shut  in  from  all  the  world  with- 
out," 9,  454. 

Siberia,  Escape  of  an  Exile  from, 
7,  491. 

Siegfried,  4,  299. 

Simple  Susan,  6,  253. 

Sindbad  the  Sailor,  5,  336. 

Singh  Rajah  and  the  Cunning 
Little  Jackals,  1,  375. 

Sir  Bors  and  Sir  Lionel,  4,  60. 


Sirens,   The,  —  Scylla   and    Cha- 
rybdis, 3,  326. 
Six  Swans,  The,  1,  181. 
Skylark,  To  a,  9,  381. 
Slavs,  Myths  of  the,  2,  399. 
Slaying  of  Hector,  The,  3,  245. 
Sleep,  Baby,  Sleep,  9,  45. 
"  Sleep,  little  pigeon,  and  fold  your 

wings,"  9,  291. 
Sleeping  Beauty,  The,  1,  116. 
Sluggard,  The,  6,  392. 
"Small    service    is    true    service 

while  it  lasts,"  9,  440. 
Snail,  The,  6,  360. 
Snow  Fort  on  Slatter's  Hill,  The, 

10,  75. 
Snow-Storm,  The,  9,  372. 
Snowbird's  Song,  The,  6,  342. 
"  Some  hae  meat  and  canna  eat," 

9,  453. 
"  Somewhat  back  from  the  village 

street,"  9,  510. 
Son  of  Seven  Queens,  The,  1,  385. 
Song  from  "  Pippa  Passes,"  9, 282. 
Song  of  Clan-Alpine,  9,  298. 
Song  of  Marion's  Men,  9,  295. 
Songs,  9,  277. 
Sore  Tongue,  The,  6,  39. 
Sound  the  Loud  Timbrel,  9,  302. 
"  Sound     the     loud    timbrel    o'er 

Egypt's  dark  sea !  "  9,  302. 
Spacious  Firmament  on  High,  The, 

9,  389. 
Spanish  Hero,  The,  4,  347. 
Spider  and  the  Fly,  The,  6,  411. 
Spring  in  New  England,  9,  334. 
Star-Lovers,  The,  2,  391. 
Star  of  Bethlehem,  The,  6,  381. 
Star-Spangled    Banner,    The,    9, 

399. 
Stay,  stay  at  Home,  my  Heart,  and 

rest,  9,  282. 
Steeple-Climber,  The,  7,  347. 


517 


INDEX    OF  TITLES 


44  Still  sits  the  school-house  hy  the 

road,"  9,  157. 
Stories  from  Germany,  1,  161. 
Stories  from  Herodotus,  3,  1. 
Stories  from  India,  1,  347. 
Stories  from  Japan,  1,  319. 
Stories  from  Livy,  3,  29. 
Stories  from  Ovid,  3,  65. 
Stories  from  the   Life   of  Julius 

Caesar,  8,  403. 
Stories  from    the  Shores  of 

the  North  Sea,  1,  231. 
Stories  in  Verse,  6,  403. 
Stories  of  the  Trojan  War,  3, 

177. 
Stories  Old  and  New,  1, 493. 
Story  of  Aladdin,  The,  5,  287. 
Story  of  Frithiof,  The,  4,  193. 
Story  of  Midshipman  Farragut,  A, 

8,  72. 

Story  of  Sam  Patch,  The,  6,  438. 
Story  of  the  "Barefoot  Boy,"  9, 

52. 
Story  of  the  Pigs,  The,  1,  474. 
Story  of  Virginia,  The,  3,  52. 
Story-teller  at  Fault,  The,  1,  423. 
Story-telling  Poems,  9,  71. 
Sun,   The ;  or,  The  Three  Golden 

Hairs  of  the  Old  Man  Vsevede, 

2,  430. 
Sun  and  the  Wind,  The,  1,  496. 
"  Sunset  and  evening  star,"  9, 306. 
Suppose !  9,  420. 
"  Suppose,  my  little  lady,"  9,  420. 
Sweet  and  Low,  9,  286. 
"  Sweet  and  low,  sweet  and  low," 

9,  286. 

Swinging  on  a  Birch-tree,  9,  342. 
Swiss  Family  Robinson's  First  Day 

on  the  Desert  Island,  The,  6, 

56. 


"  'T  is  the  voice  of  the  sluggard,  I 
hear  him  complain,"  6,  392. 


"  'T  was    a   jolly   old  pedagogue, 

long  ago,"  9,  505. 
"  'T  was  the  night  before  Christ- 
mas,  when    all   through   the 

house,"  6,  343. 
Tales   from    Shakespeare,  5, 

389. 
Teakettle,  The  Accomplished  and 

Lucky,  1,  324. 
"  Teach  me,  my  God  and  King," 

9,  415. 
"  Tell  me  not,  in  mournful  num- 
bers," 9,  413. 
Telling  the  Bees,  9,  159. 
Tempest,  The,  5,  428. 
Thanatopsis,  9,  443. 
Thanksgiving     to     God,    for    his 

House,  A,  9,  427. 
"  The   boy  stood  on  the  burning 

deck,"  6,  346, 
"  The    breaking     waves     dashed 

high,"  9,  394. 
"  The  Butterfly,  an  idle  thing,"  6, 

368. 
"  The  cock  is  crowing,"  9,  332. 
"  The   curfew  tolls   the  knell   of 

parting  day,"  9,  434. 
"  The   dew  was   falling  fast,  the 

stars  began  to  blink,"  6,  348. 
"  The  Dog  will  come  when  he  is 

called,"  6,  358. 
"  The  elderly  gentleman  's  here," 

6,  420. 
"  The  Family  once  gave  a  Fete," 

9,20. 
"The  folk   who   lived  in  Shake- 
speare's day,"  9,  504. 
"  The  fox  and  the  crow,"  6,  363. 
"  The  Frost  looked  forth  on  a  still, 

clear  night,"  6,  369. 
"  The  frugal  snail,  with  forecast 

of  repose,"  9, 340. 
"  The  good  dame  looked  from  her 

cottage,"  9,  30. 


518 


INDEX   OF  TITLES 


"  The  ground  was  all  covered  with 

snow  one  day,"  6,  342. 
"  The  king  called  his  hest  archers," 

9,  234. 
"  The    king    sits   in   Dunfermline 

toun,"  9,  230. 
"  The  ladybug   sat   in   the  rose's 

heart,"  6,  361. 
"The    little    Road    says  Go,"  9, 

455. 
"  The  little  toy  dog  is  covered  with 

dust,"  9,  40. 
"  The  Minstrel  Boy  to  the  war  is 

gone,"  6,  388. 
u  The  mountain  and  the  squirrel," 

9,  454. 
"  The  old  mayor  climb'd  the  belfry 

tower,"  9,  113. 
"  The  Owl  and  the  Pussy-Cat  went 

to  sea,"  9,  265. 
"  The  Percy  out  of  Northumber- 
land," 9,  251. 
"  The     rich    man's     son    inherits 

lands,"  9,  425. 
"  The  snail,  how  he  creeps  slowly 

over  the  wall,"  6,  360. 
"  The  snow  had  begun  in  the  gloam- 
ing," 9,  46. 
u  The  spacious  firmament  on  high," 

9,  389. 
"The  spearmen  heard  the  bugle 

sound,"  6,  455. 
"  The     splendor    falls    on    castle 

walls,"  9,  286. 
"  The   summer   and   autumn  had 

been  so  wet,"  9,  100. 
"  The  sun  had  sunk  in  the  west,' ' 

9,  161. 
"  The  wind  it  blew,  and  the  ship  it 

flew,"  9,  246. 
"  The  wind  one  morning  sprang  up 

from  sleep,"  6,  385. 
"  The  word  of  the  Lord  by  night," 
9,  404. 


"  The  world  is  so  full  of  a  number 

of  things,"  9,  329. 
"  The   year 's   at   the  spring,"   9, 

282. 
"  There   came  a  youth   upon   the 

earth,"  9,  169. 
"  There    is    nothing    to    see,"   9, 

345. 
"  There  's  a  song  in  the  air !  "  9, 

311. 
"  There  was  a  little  fellow  once," 

6,  431. 
"  There  was  a  round  pond,  and  a 

pretty  pond  too,"  6,  435. 
"  There  was  a  sound  of  revelry  by 

night,"  9,  484. 
"  There  was  an  old  lady  who  lived 

o'er  the  sea,"  6,436. 
"  There  were  three  sailors  of  Bris- 
tol city,"  9,  275. 
"  They   grew  in   beauty,  side   by 

side,"  6,  387. 
"  They   say  that   God   lives   very 

high,"  9,  46. 
"  They  went  to  sea  in  a  sieve,  they 

did,"  9,  267. 
Things  by  their  Right  Names,  6, 

24. 
Things  I  miss,  The,  9,  513. 
"  This  I  beheld,  or  dreamed  it  in  a 

dream,"  9,  440. 
"  This  is  Don,  the  dog  of  all  dogs," 

9,  350. 
This  is  the  ship  of  pearl,  which, 

poets  feign,  9,  446. 
Thor's     Adventures     among     the 

Jotuns,  2,  263. 
Those  Evening  Bells,  9,  294. 
"  Those  evening  bells  !  those  even- 
ing bells  !  "  9,  294. 
"  Thou  blossom   bright   with  au- 
tumn dew,"  9,  368. 
"  Thou,   too,   sail   on,  O   Ship   of 

State !  "  9,  408. 


519 


INDEX   OF   TITLES 


"  Though  rudely  blows  the  wintry 
blast,"  9,  501. 

Three  Bears,  The,  1,  6. 

Three  Children  sliding  on  the  Ice, 
6,  351. 

Three  Fishers,  The,  9,  305. 

"  Three  fishers  went  sailing  out 
into  the  west,"  9,  305. 

Three  Kings,  The,  9,  315. 

"  Three  Kings  came  riding  from 
far  away,"  9,  315. 

Three  Sillies,  The,  1,  67. 

Three  Thousand  Three  Hundred 
and  Odd  Lashes,  The,  5,  265. 

Through  the  Flood  on  Foot,  9, 
161. 

Thurabling,  1,  175. 

Tiger,  The,  9,  353. 

Tiger,  the  Fox,  and  the  Hunters, 
The,  1,  371. 

"  Tiger  !  Tiger !  burning  bright," 
9,  353. 

Tin  Soldier,  The  Constant,  1,  246. 

Tit  for  Tat,  1,  383. 

Tit  for  Tat  (verse),  6,  443. 

To  a  Child,  9,  440. 

To  a  Mouse,  9,  370. 

To  a  Redbreast,  6,  341. 

To  a  Skylark,  9,  381. 

To  a  Waterfowl,  9,  369. 

"  To  do  to  others  as  I  would,' '  6, 
346. 

"  To  him  who  in  the  love  of  Nature 
holds,"  9,  443. 

To  the  Dandelion,  9,  337. 

To  the  Fringed  Gentian,  9,  368. 

"  Toll  for  the  brave,"  9,  473. 

Tom  Thumb,  1, 93. 

Tommy  decides  to  study  Arithme- 
tic, 6,  160. 

Tommy  Merton  meets  Harry  Sand- 
ford,  6,  149. 

Tongue-cut  Sparrow,  The,  1,  334. 

Tortoise  and  the  Hare,  The,  1, 500. 


Training  Elephants  in  Ceylon,  7, 

381. 

Traveler's  Ordeal,  A,  7,  439. 

Travels  of  Baron  Munchau- 
sen, The,  5,  371. 

Trenck,  Baron,  8,  423. 

Trial  by  Swords,  The,  4,  398. 

Trial  of  Psyche,  The,  2,  246. 

Trojan  War,  Stories  of  the, 
3,  177. 

Tune  that  makes  the  Tiger 
Drowsy,  The,  1,  363. 

Turtle  and  Flamingo,  The,  9,  273. 

Twin  Babies,  7,  3. 

Twinkle,  Twinkle,  Little  Star,  6, 
339. 

Two  Little  Runaways,  10,  44. 

Two  Scenes  from  the  Life  of 
George  Washington,  8,  456. 

Ugly  Duckling,  The,  1,  233. 

Ulysses,  The  Vengeance  of,  3,  351. 

Ulysses,  The  Wanderings  of, 
3,  275. 

Ulysses  at  the  House  of  the  Swine- 
herd, 3,  339. 

Ulysses  in  Ithaca,  3,  331. 

"  Under  a  spreading  chestnut-tree," 
9,  456. 

Unknown  Country,  The,  9,  433. 

Unloading  a  Wreck,  5,  82. 

Unwilling  Rebel,  An,  8,  182. 

"Up  the  airy  mountain,"  9,  469. 

Use  of  Flowers,  The,  6,  365. 

Vengeance  of  Ulysses,  The,  3, 351. 
Verses  supposed  to  be  written  by 

Alexander  Selkirk,  9,  482. 
Vesuvius,  Mount,  The  Eruption  of, 

8,  393. 
Village  Blacksmith,  The,  9,  456. 
Violet,  The,  6,  378. 
Virginia,  The  Story  of,  3,  52. 
Vision  of  Sir  Launfal,  The,  9, 184. 


520 


INDEX   OF   TITLES 


Vision  of  Tsunu,  The,  2,  383. 

Visit  from  St.  Nicholas,  A,  6, 343. 

Visit  from  the  Indians  to  Bartholo- 
mew Gosnold,  A,  7,  401. 

Visit  to  Robinson  Crusoe's  Island, 
A,  7,  116. 

Visit  to  the  House  of  the  Inter- 
preter, A,  5,  7. 

Vulcan  makes  Armor  for  Achilles, 
3,  238. 

Wager,  The,  6,  12. 

Waiting  for  the  Bugle,  9,  515. 

"  Walking    forth,    ono  summer's 

day,"  6,  354. 
Wanderings   of    the    Trojan 

MKRAS,  The,  3,  393. 
Wanderings  of  Ulysses,  The, 

3,  275. 
Wants  of  Man,  The,  9,  45S. 
War  Eagle   and    Other   Soldiers' 

Pets,  The,  7,  22. 
Washington,  Dolly  Madison   and 

the  Burning  of,  8,  75. 
Washington,  George,  Two  Scenes 

from  the  Life  of,  8,  456. 
Waterfowl,  To  a,  9,  369. 
Waterloo,  9,  484. 
Wayside  Flowers,  9,  355. 
We  are  Seven,  6,  375. 
"  We  wait  for  the  bugle  ;  the  night 

dews  are  cold,"  9,  515. 
"  We  were  crowded  in  the  cabin," 

9,39. 
u  Wee,   sleekit,    cowrin,    tim'rous 

beastie,"  9,  370. 
Wee  Willie  Winkie,  10,  242. 
Whale,  Our  First,  7,  146. 
"What  is  the  little  one  thinking 

about,"  9,  6. 
What  the  Winds  bring,  9,  17. 
"What  was   he  doing,  the   great 

god  Pan,"  9,  177. 
"  What !  you  want  to  hear  a  story 


all  about  the  old-time  glory," 

9,  23. 
When  Clara  Morris  first  met  Gar- 
field, 7,  268. 
"  When  General  Washington  was 

young,"  6,  348. 
"  When  I  consider  how  my  light  is 

spent,"  9,  429. 
"  When  marshaled  on  the  nightly 

plain,"  6,  381. 
When  the  Bees  swarmed,  7,  10. 
"  When    the     grass    was    closely 

mown,"  9,  12. 
"  When  the  open  fire  is  lit,"  9, 43. 
"  Where  did  you  come  from,  baby 

dear?"  9,5. 
"  Where    is   the    unknown    coun- 
try ?  "  9,  433. 
"  Where,  over  heathen  doom-rings 

and  gray  stones  of  the  Horg," 

9,  106. 
' '  Which  is  the  Wind  that  brings 

the  cold  ?  "  9,  17. 
While    Shepherds   watched   their 

Flocks  by  Night,  9,  309. 
White  Cat,  The,  1,  130. 
White    Champion   of   the   Algon- 

quins,  The,  8,  47. 
"  Whither,  'midst  falling  dew,"  9, 

369. 
Whittington  and  his  Cat,  1,  55. 
Who  killed  the  Otter's  Babies,  1, 

354. 
Why  Brother  Bear  has  no  Tail,  1, 

487. 
"Why,  Phebe,   are  you  come  so 

soon  ?  "  6,  422. 
Why  the  Cat  always  falls  upon  her 

Feet,  1,  519. 
Why  the  Evergreen  Trees  never 

lose  their  Leaves,  1,  514. 
Why  the  Sea  is  Salt,  1,  288. 
Why  there  is  a  Man  in  the  Moon. 

1,  517. 


521 


INDEX   OF  TITLES 


"'Will  you  walk  into  my  par- 
lor ? '  said  the  spider  to  the 
fly,"  6,  411. 

William  of  Cloudesle\  9,  234. 

Wind  in  a  Frolic,  The,  6,  385. 

"  With  deep  affection,"  9,  508. 

"  Within  this  lowly  grave  a  Con- 
queror lies,"  9,  430. 

Wolf  Fenris  was  Chained,  How 
the,  2,  293. 

Wonderful  One-Hosa  Shay,  The, 
9,  119. 

Wonderful  Quern  Stones,  The,  2, 
352. 

Wooden  Horse  and  the  Fall  of 
Troy,  The,  3,  269. 


Woodland  Intimate,  A,  7,  131. 
Wreck  of  the  Hesperus,  The,  9, 

26. 
Wynken,   Blynken,   and   Nod,  9, 

279. 
"  Wynken,  Blynken,  and  Nod  one 

night,  "  9,  279. 

Ye  Mariners  of  England,  9,  300. 
" '  You  are  old,  Father  William,' 

the    young    man    cried,"    6, 

368. 
"You'd  scarce  expect  one  of  my 

age,"  6,  362. 
"  You  know,  we  French  storm' d 

Ratisbon,"  9,  166. 


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